MARKETING, COMMUNICATIONS, AUDIENCE DESIGN
Months ago, I had the chance to interview Tom Herck regarding his latest performance at Burning Man and I was left with the impression that his art stroke a chord with the public primarily because of his ability to connect his creative universe with major issues felt in society, whether on a macro or micro level. It…
As I mentioned in my previous post, the isolation imposed for the COVID-19 pandemic is deeply affecting the film and entertainment industry. At the beginning of the lockdown in Italy, many agencies and consultants in the marketing and communication sector wondered what they could do to help their community go through this difficult time and make…
It’s a good day to be a fan of TV series in Milan, as Stardust by QMI is kicking off the first edition of Series Con this weekend. Packed with talks, guests and talents, special screenings and awards, it’s a two-day event (11-12 May) devoted to television and serialised entertainment hosted at Tenoha Milano. While Skam Italia will…
2018 is almost done and I am writing from Belgium right now, where I am spending what remains of the year with my wife’s family. Around this time one usually goes for the best nine Instagram posts but I chose to sum up my recent trip to L.A. with a personal list of what I…
If you were following me on social media in the past few days, you might have noticed that I was on another assignment for the online magazine Bobos.it – a trendy one, actually. While Milan was going crazy for Fashion Week, I skipped some of the glamour to sit in the dark of the screening…
Let’s face it: we all have some wrongs to right. Sometimes, though, you need a pair of extra hands in order to get a revenge while getting your a** out of a complicated situation. And who’s better than a professional to help you out? Since former CIA agent Robert McCall is one of the best…
Among the many film festivals in the world, there is one I hold particularly dear. It’s the Verona Film Festival – Schermi d’Amore, born in the city of Romeo and Juliet and entirely devoted to sentimental cinema and mélo. This is where I started to work in the film industry a decade ago, when I…
The premise of this post goes back in time over ten years ago, when I was studying for my MA in Cinema, Television and Multimedia Production at the University of Bologna. One of my pals over there was Markus Duffner, who was into Monty Python and unconventional audiovisual narratives. Fast forward a decade, he has…
Because of my activity as a researcher and film marketing consultant, I regularly meet many professionals operating across all of the areas of the industry. A good portion of them are worried about the future, but just don’t know how to face what’s changing in the film business. One of the key theme everyone is…
Gli amanti di film e serie televisive in Italia sanno che il martedì hanno un appuntamento fisso con il proprio edicolante di fiducia (o la cassetta della posta, o lo schermo del proprio pc/tablet/smartphone). È il giorno in cui il nuovo numero di Film Tv, settimanale di cinema, televisione, musica e spettacolo, raggiunge i suoi…
I guess by now summer vacations are pretty much over for everyone, and we all are already mourning our holiday routines and longing to go back to our favourite stress-free spots as soon as possible. So no heavy topics here: I just wanted to share my personal list of “loves at first sight” from the…
It took Jan Fabre over 40 years to conceive what I was about to see in April at the Abbey of San Gregorio in Venice. The Belgian artist’s fascination for the themes of metamorphosis, life and death is well documented, and on this specific occasion, a collateral event of the 57th International Art Exhibition –…
November brought a bunch of great news for TorinoFilmLab-supported films (which month did not, anyway?). For my ongoing series of posts focused on TFL releases and work in progress projects, especially related to the 2012 Script&Pitch and Audience Design Programmes, I’m glad to share three updates from Chile, France and Italy. Principal photography for La…
The reason why I like follow-up posts is that, at least in my case, they add good news to good news. This one in particular is an update of an ongoing series focused on the release of TorinoFilmLab-supported films. I read the first draft for Kevin Meul’s debut feature film My First Highway in 2012,…
Autumn will be a very busy season for TorinoFilmLab, which is introducing major changes in its training activities for the audiovisual industry. The Torino-based laboratory supporting international talents has just unveiled what prospect participants and Alumni can expect to be fully introduced to between this fall and the beginning of 2017. First of all, as…
On 3 September some of the Financial Times Weekend’s best-known writers and columnists joined guest speakers and leading figures from fashion, the art world, food and wine for the inaugural edition of the FT Weekend Live Festival. No less than seven stages were devoted to discuss ideas and trends across businesses, markets and creative industries,…
It’s no secret that film is a tough industry and it usually takes a while to enjoy the fruit of one’s hard work. But if you don’t give up and keep on pushing your project, that time will come. If you read my blog it is also no secret that I have had the privilege…
While fans of Penny Dreadful are still mourning the recently announced ending of Showtime’s horror drama TV series after the Season 3 finale, I thought it was a good idea to catch-up with someone who worked on the show. You may remember Davide Melini from my previous interview on his homage to the “Giallo” film…
[Scroll down for the Italian version] At the UK premiere of Tale of Tales at Curzon Mayfair on 1 June I was expecting that the audience would be fascinated by the locations of this sumptuous re-telling of Giambattista Basile‘s fairy tale collection Pentamerone. Very soon into the presentation director Matteo Garrone said jokingly that with…
[Scroll down for the Italian version] Last week I kicked off my complementary membership at Curzon Cinemas with a gleefully blasphemous film, which made me laugh a lot, but understandably won’t appeal to some viewers with little sense of humour when it comes to religion. Between satire and dystopian fantasy disguised as a black comedy,…
[Scroll down for the Italian version] I have always respected László Nemes‘ integrity as a filmmaker. On 12 April, at a special event for the launch of his first feature film at Curzon Soho, the Hungarian director once more showed his uncompromising approach to the screening of his debut. As per his request, no one would…
There is a peculiar contradiction at the heart of Belgian artist Jan Fabre‘s latest project, ‘The Man Who Bears the Cross’. As a reflection on the relationship between heaven and earth, it is first of all an intimate dialogue within the self and an unspeakable dimension. But being an installation hosted in the Cathedral of…
What immediately strikes you while going through Italian artist Marco Lusini’s biography (1936-1989), are the many art forms he experimented with before finding his ideal medium, painting. Photography, lithography, illustration, black ink drawing, not to mention sculpture and poetry, were all fertile ground in which the Siena-born “astronaut of inner space”, as Riccardo Belloni defined…
“And now what?” It sounds like a genuine question to ask a director who has just won a prize in a “A list” film festival. It happened to László Nemes just a few days ago, during the press conference of the Award Winners in Cannes. His first feature, Son of Saul, won the prestigious Grand Prix…
Have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes of world-famous galleries and museums? How do they connect with their audiences? What are their routines and how do they arrange the content that we experience as visitors? I’ve reached out to Jane Findlay, Head of Schools and Young Audiences at The British Museum, and asked…
I started to research interactive documentaries back in 2013 when I was living in Italy, because this hybrid form of storytelling matched my interest in digital narratives and audience engagement. As soon as I moved to London I looked for people interested in the topic and immediately found out that one of the leading researchers…
I’m always happy to see collaborations among artists grow, and even happier when artistic projects explore different cultures and build bridges between distant worlds. That is why I got very excited about Digital Arabesques 2014. As featured in a recent article on Designboom, the latest collaboration between French digital artist Miguel Chevalier and filmmaker Claude…
I admit it: I’ve cheated. I’ve recently read Carlo Vanoni‘s book In Bed with Mona Lisa – Contemporary Art for Commuters and Curious Minds (La Toletta, 2014) all at once, while on a train from Brussels to London. Which is a shame, because the nice idea about this humorous trip into the world of contemporary…
After discussing how director Davide Melini started his career, let’s delve into his new short, Deep Shock. Produced by Fabel Aguilera and Melini himself, it is supported by the most important institutions of Malaga, such as the “Diputación de Málaga”, the “Ayuntamiento de Málaga” and the “Málaga Film Office”. According to the official synopsis, the…
It’s not a secret that the film business is one of the most competitive among the creative and cultural industries. So I’m always keen to support emerging filmmakers who are trying to break into it. Davide Melini is an Italian director born in Rome in 1979 and who relocated to Spain a few years ago.…
Cine-Excess is one of those places where you can spend your lunch break eating sandwiches and fresh fruit while speaking about moviemaking, crowdfunding and gatekeepers in the film industry with veteran horror directors such as Jeff Lieberman. That’s exactly what happened to me on 15 November, while I was waiting to present my paper at…
After discussing the project’s genesis and some aspects of the storytelling process, I asked director Anrick Bregman to share more insights about immersive tools, music and sound design featured in his web doc The Most Northern Place. Prominent Monkey: Which are the main features that create the immersive experience you designed for the viewer? Anrick…
After discussing the genesis of The Most Northern Place with director Anrick Bregman, I wanted to know more about the engagement aspects of his interactive documentary and discover how he and his team approached this compelling story. Prominent Monkey: In this post you said that a traditional documentary would not achieve the same sense of exploration.…
There is no doubt that digital media is pushing the boundaries of filmmaking. When it comes to documentaries, web docs leave linear narratives behind and allow viewers to experience a more engaging connection with the story portrayed. Very often they are large-scale projects with very consistent budgets, but who said you can’t achieve immersive outcomes…
I usually say that crosspollination is the key to today’s creative landscape: film and digital media, storytelling and coding, multi-platform worlds and social innovation, smart cities and interactive stories, gaming technologies and journalism. I couldn’t then resist when I heard that Learn Do Share was coming to London for a free two-day conference packed with…
The above sentence may sound like a pretentious bellicose statement pronounced by a director on the chaotic and high-tech set of the latest summer blockbuster. Instead it was calmly expressed by writer and director David Pope within the small and intimate walls of the Filmmaking Foundation Course at London Film Academy, where the only rotors you…
Living conditions in a refugee camp or in a street devastated by a bomb sound abstract to the majority of us. What if technology allowed people to experience these scenarios in an immersive environment, reproducing real events through actual audio, video and photographs taken at the scene? Nonny de la Peña calls this technology-driven opportunity…
I have always thought that part of the success of street art lies in the fact that these artists manage to integrate their oeuvres within urban spaces in the most unexpected ways. Their provoking works interact with what’s around them and force us to view walls, bridges, doors and windows through different eyes. Outside of…
After discussing how Claude Mossessian started his career, in this second instalment of the interview with the filmmaker Prominent Monkey focuses on his work with French digital artist Miguel Chevalier. Prominent Monkey: I find your long-lasting collaboration with Miguel Chevalier particularly interesting. How did you start to work with him? Claude Mossessian: I met him…
You might have heard about his work first after The Huffington Post spread the word about one of his latest collaboration with French digital artist Miguel Chevalier, but Claude Mossessian has had a camera in his mind from a tender age. Young Claude, who is now 49 and lives in Sorède, in southern France, was…
I wasn’t a fan of “hard sciences” when I was younger. Actually, I had a fatal attraction for social sciences (if the difference still makes any sense). Maybe I never fell in love with physics and chemistry because of the lack of passion – not to mention the poor will of engagement with students –…