MIA 2024 | TellyCast Podcast

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This week were back in Rome for MIA, the leading Italian content and co production market.

Our guests on this week’s show highlight the increased focus in factual content represented at MIA 2024. We catch up with Marco Spagnoli, deputy director of MIA, Oscar-winning documentary film maker Odessa Rae, and Italian producers Federico Scardamaglia from Compagnia Leone and Pesci Combattenti’s Riccardo Mastropietro. 

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Hi, I'm Justin Crosby and welcome to another TellyCast. This week we're back in Rome for Mia, the leading Italian content and co production market. My guests on this week's show highlight the increased focus in factual content represented at Mia this year. I catch up with Marcus Bagnoli. Deputy Director of MIA, Oscar winning documentary filmmaker Odessa Ray, and Italian producers Federico Scardamaglia from Compagnia Leone, and pesci competentes Riccardo Mastro Pietro.

For videos featuring the movers and shakers of the content industry, just search TellyCast TV on YouTube or click the link in the episode description. And if you're travelling to Mipcom, make sure to swim by our market meet up on the Sunday night at Brown Sugar in Cannes from 6pm. We'll see you there. I hope you enjoy the show.

So my first guest on this week's Mia special here from Rome, a year after our first meeting in the very same place. Here we are on the terrace of the Barberini Palace is Marcus Bagnoli, he's deputy director. And head of the doc and factual division here at me and a very good producer as well. So Marco, great to see you again.

Thank you for inviting TellyCast back. No, thank you. 

It's a pleasure. It's an honor. Thank you for being here again, one year after and the future. And we have this, with this motto is, uh, because we insist very much with, uh, international partners to come and see, to taste, uh, the possibilities of the market.

Our motto, jokingly, of course, is, uh, visit Mia before Mia visits you, because we'll insist. That's the point. 

Yeah, it's one of my favorite events on the calendar. It's great to be here. Tell us a little bit about this year's Mia and what's changed from last year. It's obviously there's more of a focus on factual which is great to see and I can see quite a few distribution companies, international distribution companies here that weren't here last year so it's obviously growing and that's very much a focus for you.

Yes, it is. And also, um, what we tried to do was to, uh, improve that's the international factual showcase that will be in the next day. So it will be very interesting to see projects from all over the world because, uh, as you know, the factual. It's different from documentaries in the sense that not all the producers retain the rights.

The one who did it chose me in order to present their project. Uh, plus what's very interesting, Universal Pictures, that is not pictures, of course, but it's Universal, who decided to present their work here. So for us, it's Very interesting to, let's say, connect me to a wider market, not only to the sense of market, but also to become a place of discussion also for this type of project that are very important.

And as you know, last year when we did the digital first year in Rome, it's important to propose new ideas, new models to producers all over the world. 

Yeah, absolutely. And so looking forward over the next few days, tell us about what highlights. You're looking forward to seeing personally at, uh, at MIA in 2024.

We have, apart from our pitching forum and, uh, our showcase, Italians Look It Better, what is very interesting, uh, I think is the, this, the, um, uh, keynote of, uh, Odessa Ray about, uh, her work. She is a very interesting producer that, uh, we won the Academy Award with Navalny. Now she has Hollywood Gate and other projects.

So what I feel it's interesting to give, to find also new voices that are relatively new because she won an Academy Award, so she's done, but still to bring her also to European events. When you watch what happens in the States, you feel that something doesn't arrive here in Italy or somewhere else in Europe.

So our job is to. Talk with new people about the old business in order to 

renew 

it. 

Well, we've got Odessa Ray coming up later in the show. So we're looking forward to chatting with her. Give us a bit of a feeling Marco of the market in Italy over the past year, since we last met, how has the market changed?

Has it changed? And is it as. Challenged is everywhere else in the UK and the states and everywhere else. And I'm talking about factual content specifically. 

Of course, Italy faces the challenges that are everywhere. One of the big question marks is the role of pay TV satellite in order to broadcast some shows and the.

The O TT players will do because we know that they do something. Not all of them, especially Italy, we don't have all, uh, the streamers, for example, we don't have, uh, Hulu, but we don't have also HBO Max for example. 'cause we have Sky. So there is, these are huge differences for, for a market. They also, the difference in terms of if you think to promote a show or to do something.

Wow, people are going to see the big question, of course, right? Open a new division. That's only factual entertainment and they are planning something very interesting that we are about to see, but we didn't see it yet. So these are the big issues. Also, many of us said what we'll do with their channel. So we are in a bigger time of change because things are changing around us, around the world, and we have to understand where the audience will get their content and what they will see, especially because we will be used for a To a model that, uh, we never had, let's say, a cable in Italy, but we had a satellite that was the same, but the pay TV system, what we'll do with, what will happen with the linear television, so there are a lot of questions that reflect in the industry.

But what I like to say that Factual is working very well in Italy. It's not a matter of, uh, a problem inside the genre. It's a problem, it's a bigger problem in the system. 

For anybody who might consider coming to Mia in 2025. 

Why should they come? Because their soul will be saved, because in Rome there will be also the Jubileum, so if they're Catholics or not, they cross the Holy Door, so they have as a bonus, they can have, they can sell their project, and have, all their sin will be forgiven, as the Pope would say.

More seriously, apart from this bonus that, The reason why is because MIA is, um, a peculiar market in the sense that you have people from drama, people from television, people from, uh, film, people from animation. So if you have a, especially if you're a producer, if you have a company, if you have different project, MIA is one way store.

Plus there is one thing, I am a Democrat, I'm a liberal, and what we want to do is to have something that there are no barriers. There are, of course, respect. It's not a rave party. It's a serious market. But still, where you can meet people, because this is a market of ideas. With no harassment, you can meet anyone that comes to me.

That's, for us, is very important. Register at MIA and you can have the full market experience without the flashy things or the sandwich that costs 15 euros. Yeah, it's 

very affordable, isn't it? Rome as a city is very affordable and being able to go and get a coffee for 1 euro rather than your Starbucks for 4.

99 or something. And 

I want to say something. We value your money, everybody's money very much, but we value also time. The fact that from everywhere, almost everywhere in Europe, almost everywhere in the world, it's one way flight stop. Maybe two. It's very important because there are some markets where you need to take 15 hours, even if it's Europe to Europe, because you have to change the plane, the train or whatever.

The motto is always the same. All roads lead to Rome, 

but airports too. Fantastic. Marco, great to see you again. And congratulations on, obviously, was another big success of Mir. All the best for the rest of the market, and hopefully see you in 2025. 

We do, and pay attention if you are a sinner. Commit all the sins you want because you will be forgiven.

That's a great note to end on. Thanks a lot, Marco. My next guest on this week's Mia special here from Rome is Odessa Ray, Oscar winning. Filmmaker, Odessa, how are you doing? Lovely to meet you. 

Thank you so much. I'm surprised you didn't mention BAFTA because you're at the UK and No, or I guess 

BAFTA winning, Grierson winning, lots of, lots of awards on your I have 

to say BAFTAs were super fun.

More fun than the Oscars. Don't, am I allowed to say that? 

You might be in the running again this year, I hear. 

Hopefully, hopefully. Let's see. For a Hollywood gig. These things are always tough. 

So much to talk about, and we're going to talk about Navalny, obviously, which you won the Oscar for a couple of years ago, and we're going to talk about your new project, Hollywood Gates, which is out in the States, just about, about now, and seem to be out in the UK as well on the BBC.

So let's talk about how you. Got into being a challenging filmmaker, which I think is that fair enough to call you a challenging filmmaker? I mean, you certainly focus on really challenging subjects for anybody who doesn't know you gives a bit of a Potted history of how you got into making feature documentaries 

So making feature documentaries only started for me about seven years ago, which sounds absurd, but the Path to it.

I started in film when I was 18 years old I think my path to film actually started when I was probably five years old I grew up in India until I was eight. There were always uprisings in our area between the Tamil Tigers and the Sikhs at that point. This was the 80s. Then my dad went to finish his studies at the University of Beijing, which then he landed himself right in the middle of the Tiananmen Square uprising.

He ended up in Hong Kong. I lived in Hong Kong for a bit. I lived in Japan. In high school, in a very remote part of Japan, in the countryside, in a Buddhist temple, I grew up sort of being thrown consistently into challenging situations and having to adapt and having to see the world in a different, completely different way each time.

Having to just change my perspective on how I live my daily life. And it changed languages as well, in some cases, and that led me to film, which I started in Japan. And I speak Japanese fluently, and the first film I made, it was an autobiographical story based on still truth telling. And then in Japan, I was slightly famous because of these commercials that I was in with Brad Pitt randomly, directed by Ina Ritu at the time.

So I would put myself in the film to help raise money for the film, like myself, product placement, and Japanese celebrity. From there, move to LA. The easiest thing to continue doing was acting, but it wasn't my favorite. I wanted to figure out how to create content again because storytelling. Is something that I was the most passionate about.

Then came the idea to put together Ivanhoe Pictures. The first project that Ivanhoe produced was Crazy Rich Asians. That started with myself and John Panotti going off to Asia and trying to find Money to back a production company with an idea that we would make content, hopefully satisfied both Asia and the West.

And that was inspired by my upbringing and my closeness to Asia. And even Crazy Rich Asians, if you look at it, it's something that bridges a gap. So this idea that just born in my childhood where we should hope we should all try and see things that. We don't necessarily know and try and see them intimately and hopefully through that make the world a more understanding place of each other.

And my first documentary came at a point about six, seven years ago where I, my ex boyfriend bought me a DSLR camera. For my birthday, and I learned how to use it and I decided to go out and make a small short documentary just about something that a friend was doing that I thought was interesting. I gave that film that I made to the UNHCR and they used it, it was connected to refugees at the time.

I felt like finally after acting this, that, I just loved this process. And then I turned that into a feature documentary. I just learned as I went along, I knew enough about film and from being on different sides of it that I figured out that first documentary and made another doc, and the third one I think was Navalny, which was crazy, but it comes from An adventurous spirit and wanting to find something that is unknown, maybe.

I'm really interested in impact and the impact of your filmmaking. And obviously that's something that's very, very close to your heart in terms of the projects that you decide to take on and how you affect change or trying to affect change with them. So we'll come on to that in a second, but let's just talk about Navalny now, as it's your third film.

Give us an insight into how you got involved in that project. Well, 

and Navalny looks like this big film now in the world, but it was really just my third film, second film that I actually finished. And we were making, Daniel and I were making another film when we got pulled into Navalny in Ukraine. And it was a small film, I met Kristo Grosev via his best friend in Jordan at the end of filming The Story Won't Die, which was my first documentary.

And I went there to just see the Azraq camp on the border of Syria and Jordan, knew some people who invited me to dinner, and this was the origin of getting to Navalny because that person introduced me to Kristo Grosev. Around that time, I met Daniel Rohr at the end of his screening of his first feature documentary, even though he'd made short documentaries before.

This was his first feature, the, the band, the movie about Robbie Robertson and we were both Canadian and we just said, let's find something to work on together. You know, we sort of felt an adventurous spirit in each other, I think. I told Daniel about Carl, who was Christo's best friend. We decided to go to Vienna to meet this Christo guy.

And Christo was at the time investigating. An operation in Ukraine that had to do with bringing down 32 Wagner fighters who were key in starting the unrest in Ukraine in 2014, which was the origin story of the war, which hadn't started at this point, but still we thought it sounded interesting. We went to Vienna and Christo being Christo was like, guys, we got to go to Ukraine right now.

You got to get these spies on camera. They're going to be arrested. We had no money. We were just. Doc Filmmakers, we reached out to one production company that we knew and they were like, okay, fine, we'll give you 50 grand to go do your interviews, but basically they sent us a contract wanting all rights to whatever we do, right?

And Daniel and I looked at each other and we thought, we think there's something here there that maybe we shouldn't sell all the rights immediately. Christo and I spoke and we decided to just Ukraine is pretty cheap. We had a lot of connections to get things done cheap, and we decided to just split the cost, put it on our credit card, and hopefully sell it for more money at the end.

So this was risky. We got to Ukraine. Certain people didn't want that story told. We started getting threats and threats. It made, they made it very clear that we should leave Ukraine and on that plane to Vienna, we thought let's go back to Vienna where Christo lives, just regroup and figure out how to get those spies out and interview them.

On that plane back to Vienna, Christo was like, when we land, I'm just going to jump over to Bratislav because There's a source there that might have a key into Navalny's poisoning. So Navalny had been poisoned in the background, and we were following it on the international media. This was about September of 2020, and I really had no history into Russia or connection to it.

My history was more with Asia. Daniel was more Canada. But we just thought, that's a big story, and we said, Christo, just get us a meeting. And it took a few weeks, Navalny was then transferred down to the Black Forest, where he recovered, after coming out of the coma, and we rented a car in Vienna, packed it full of camera gear that we didn't return any of it on time, obviously drove to the Black Forest, and Daniel had this shitty Sony FS5 that was broken.

But that was our only camera. No, we had some other like sound equipment I think we rented from Vienna and maybe one other small camera. We packed it in a car and drove eight hours to sit down with Navalny and it was Navalny and Maria Pevchik and me and Daniel and Christo and just yeah, you know We make documentaries and trying to present really well, even though we both really only made one film.

Yeah, we're just like Yeah, we're documentary filmmakers and you guys are in this really great moment in your life and fake it till you make it. And, and we, Daniel's last film opened TIFF and my film is on Amazon. We didn't get to just put it on Amazon. So we just said, but I had some other things in my past and Daniel that we looked at least like legit filmmakers ish.

And, but they were not trusting immediately. They wanted to see our bank accounts to make sure we weren't getting payments from foreign governments. They thought we could be spies. So we went through a thorough sort of background check, but, uh, sure enough, the next morning they allowed us to like film a little bit.

And I think the first thing we shot. It was actually with Daniel's Broken, Sony FS5, and OneLab was the apple scene where they take a little walk and they pick an apple and he's like, Oh, this is just like, you think this is just like Russia where everything, it's open property, it's for you to take. And we just walked, we just left shooting that little scene and thought.

What a great character Navalny was. He just had a charisma that was so magical. And um, what ensued was I, you know, I got to spend a few months with just an extraordinary human being. COVID started to hit. Lockdowns were happening. I found a really lovely sound guy in Stuttgart who came and embedded with us and then eventually also a great DP in Kitzbühel who came for the cause, both of them with like almost no pay because we still had no money, like we didn't have any time to raise money or I didn't know any big fancy people to call up to give us money.

And so Christo and I just continued putting it on credit cards. Christo has more money than me, so he was fine. But I was definitely very stressed out when it hit the three month mark, and I was heavily in debt. Daniel and I begged Shane Boris to come join the team, who was a producer, another producer on the film.

He came on, just, Right towards the Alexei going back and he had introduced us to Diane Becker and Diane and it had brought a meeting in with the CNN film so we pitched CNN in front of the suspect board there in our Airbnb because my and Daniel's Airbnb became like the workplace and and so that's the Airbnb where We shot the phone call, we had the, the suspect board, and even in the background of the phone call, it's just like my bedroom door.

So we pitched them there and they just immediately said yes, and started, we started getting some money. You could 

relax a little bit on that score. But 

that was only at the, right at the end of shooting, like three months in. 

Yeah. And did you have a sense of the danger that you were putting yourself in shooting this documentary?

Yeah. 

Yeah, we would somehow, the day of the phone call, we were freaked out. We thought that phone call ended. Christo was like, he confessed everything. Everyone jumped up, freaking out. And Daniel said to me, you go watch the door. And I'm like, for like incoming FSB, I'm skinny and not really equipped for that, but okay.

And Christo was like, yeah. It was still only 6. 30 in the morning or something. Christo was trying to get the German police on the phone. We thought, Jesus, if they have our house tapped or anything, they would bust through that door, shoot us all, and take this footage. And we were trying to upload it before.

So that day was definitely, and you know, our whole lives, even in Ukraine, I started to understand that I was entering this different world where we had to, we just had to learn a different way of operating undercover. And you move everything to signal, you move around, you just move around where you have meetings and what you talk about and who's around you, you become a lot more aware of all of it.

And. Now I just have that. 

Yeah. It had an extraordinary impact, BBC Storyville featured it and different international broadcasters in the end. It had a theatrical run to begin with as well, didn't it? But in terms of number of international broadcasters, where's it been shown? Do you have any sense of internationally?

Yes, it was shown in most territories, Germany, France, the Netherlands, I remember the broadcast guy telling me that it was the most watched, they did a few runs of it. Because we were HBO, like, connected to CNN Films, and HBO is not in a lot of territories, we ended up going with the biggest broadcasters in those territories.

And in terms of the impact, first of all, how do you think it's impacted? Obviously, the Russian regime has not necessarily impacted them in any great way, or do you think it has? Give us a sense of how you think. It's shone a light on the way that the Russian government's working and oppressing political opposition.

I know that it was widely seen in Russia also, and if you want to talk about the impact in Russia, I think it's just an awareness of, now there's a total awareness, like no one, that's not true, probably half the country that just watched Channel 1 and are completely into that narrative, they think Navalny is a criminal, and they think he died naturally in prison, and that is the narrative that they believe, but probably for the, maybe, and maybe that's 60 percent of the population.

But I'd say for the other 40%, I know that the film was really well received, and people really appreciated having A documentation of somebody that they were hoping for as far as leadership for the country in the coming years. Navalny was someone who had huge recognition and he was the most powerful opposition leader in Russia.

He had a chance to be the future leadership of that country. And I think that the documentary. On the outside gave the West a more understanding, more nuanced understanding of what's happening in Russia right now. That not everyone, not 86 percent of the population just love and vote for Putin, that the system is very corrupt.

Now, uh, winning an Oscar is obviously a remarkable achievement. How's life changed for you as a documentary filmmaker since you've won an Oscar. I 

have to say that, that little statue, little bit heavy, it does a lot for opening doors. It really helps. It just helps people return your phone call and listen to your pitch and take you seriously.

What I find remarkable is the fact that you've got to this position so quickly, but also you haven't had to deal with commissioners. You haven't had to deal with the traditional way that most documentary filmmakers, certainly that historically, certainly in the last few years, not necessarily in the future with social media and et cetera, but you haven't had to deal with those gatekeepers necessarily.

You've obviously put yourself really put yourself in debt and your credit card racked up the credit card. But by the way, did the Viennese gear high company, did they get their cameras back? 

Yeah, I think they were pretty mad at us though, and then they sort of forgave us when they saw the film. Our DP was exed from renting from them for a while.

I think we did put them in the credits to try and get them to forgive us, because there's only like one rental place in Vienna that you really need, and that was the one. And they definitely were not that happy. 

You're finding doors are opening much easier, as I can imagine. And, but obviously in terms of people investing into your projects, it's the goal is going to be very much on your terms, right?

In terms of the story that you've, that you want to tell. 

No, now it's the stories I want to tell, I completely select by myself. It's just what I, what, whatever I love. And I go down those paths of what makes me tick. And. that. And I honestly, I go through quite like trying to make several of them work that have very tough access, they fall apart and then others work.

Right now I'm really maxed out with what I'm working on, but it's three, three different things that I'm. deeply passionate about. And I think for me, it's just about what makes me excited and what I think the world should have, hopefully. Like, what do I want to give the world as far as storytelling? 

So your next project, Hollywood Gate, which is, I guess, another extraordinary story of the aftermath of the U.

S. military pulling out of Afghanistan and Taliban filling that power vacuum. And, and this is focused. around a XCIA control area or base, if you like, tell us about how that film has come together and just give us a very brief synopsis of Hollywood Gay. 

So I worked with Ibrahim Nashat, who's the director, who used his history in journalism in the Middle East to get access to the high rungs of the Taliban.

It was not easy. It took many months of first, he got some help, I think, from the Doha Film Institute to get into Afghanistan on a Qatari military plane. And then once he got there, everyone who he had been in contact with before ghosted him. He had to make new inroads. I think it was a couple months in that he was on his last pennies and leaving.

No one was commissioning him. He just went on the money that he had. And, uh, he bumped into someone in the building of the apartment that he'd rented in Kabul who helped him on the very last day. And I started filming with the younger guy, Mukhtar, first. And then that led us to the leadership. Mukhtar basically took us into this CIA base, and that was where we discovered, oh, this is where the film is.

Everything that had just been left behind by the U. S. 

And that's like 7 billion worth of military hardware. 

Probably more. The official number from the Pentagon is that 7 billion, so that's sort of what we safely say. But. It could be close to 20, I don't know, because they just are, they fixed a lot of what we had said was retrograded or not in use anymore.

That's on the BBC, isn't it? Yeah, it's on BBC 

now. I've just launched on the 8th. It was Curzon. It was in theaters with Curzon. 

And it's, again, up for an Oscar. Where are you through the process of, of, of the Oscar, uh, journey? 

Luckily, we've been in the conversation. We've won a lot of awards at festivals, which put you in the conversation.

But we, in the U. S., we don't have a U. S. distributor, so we do have a handicap in that sense because Netflix and Netgeo and Amazon decided they have a lot more money to put into the film's campaign trail, which is a whole other thing, right? Screenings in all the countries where the members live, like the U.

K., Copenhagen, Berlin, L. A., New York, this all costs a lot of money. getting the film seen, having Q& As, talking about the film. So, we have the very minimal amount of campaigning going on, but we have definitely some fans in the industry that have put us on these front runner lists, like Scott Feinberg for the Hollywood Reporter, etc.,

IndieWire, and it's in the conversation. And let's just hope. 

And when do you find out, what's the next stage? When do you find out? I think for 

the Oscar voting is right around Thanksgiving. And then nominations is around mid January, and for BAFTA I think it's also January. So yeah, you just hope that enough people see the film on the portal, because now the film will be available not only in the U.

S. on Jolt, but also on the Academy portal, so all the members have access to this portal where they go to watch the films. that they need to vote on. 

Fingers crossed for that. And just finally, Odessa, I'd like to just get an idea of your feeling on the importance of storytelling and independent storytelling, because now we're coming to different times with slightly more authoritarian governments, but we're seeing the impact of social media.

We're seeing. 

The impact of knowing the algorithm. Yeah, 

exactly. Algorithm. But there's also the governments that are using social media to spread their propaganda, not necessarily the real story. And 

controlled narrative. 

And so obviously you're going to, you're going to say that that is more important than ever, independent storytelling.

It's like, how, how will we ever have an understanding of each other and of the world that we live in if we don't see things that are not. curated by an algorithm of something we've seen or a single perspective that wants us to see. Being able to see and know the truth and different perspectives I think is your God given human right, and so I will fight for that, absolutely.

Would you ever go direct to digital? Would you ever, I mean, obviously if you can build partners together that can. 

Yeah, I think there's a lot of exciting different avenues being born now because distribution is becoming so tough, especially in the U. S. What I'm, I'm really excited about this time, I think it's a birthing time and there'll be all these different avenues and experimentation going into, how do you get a film scene?

How do you monetize that? How do you create new audiences? Because when Netflix was born, it created new audiences, right? And I think now they sort of have settled in on their audience and it's our job to, the younger generation probably, to like pick it up and say, they did this. Let's try this. And there's tech is just always exploding with new innovation and who knows how we'll see our content in the future.

But I'm excited about this time as a birthing time as well. Yeah. 

Odessa, thank you for being so generous with your time. It's a really fascinating to meet you and we're here at MIA and. It's very much a, a, a big push into documentary at Mia, but before it's been probably more for scripted as a scripted market.

Yeah. Why 

do you think 

it's probably Marcos Bangoli, who's such a campaigner for documentaries in Italy and props to him for getting you here, and lots of other leading documentarians here. Thank you again. Yeah, 

thank you. Thank you so much. 

So my next guest on this week show is Federico Scarda Maglio from Compania Leone.

And we're here on the roof terrace of the Barberini Palace. You can hear some of Rome whizzing by downstairs, maybe in the background. Federico, thank you for coming on TellyCast. Your business is a really storied business that's really comes from a real old tradition of Italian business. content production.

Tell us a bit about your business and the origins of it. 

Hello, I'm Federico. Thank you very much. And yes, my company is run by me now, and I'm the third generation of producer. Start my grandfather, Elio, in the 60s with Leone Film, and they did a lot of movie of different genre, the Machiste movie. The spaghetti Western horror movie till the eighties.

Then we specialize in comedy with Bud Spencer. That is a great IP here in Italy and Germany. And from nineties with my father, Francesco, that was also a screenwriter. We change our focus on TV series on TV business. But now we are, of course, in this moment, that's Very fluid situation between, uh, TV and cinema and theater.

We do both. We are both cinema and TV series. 

And there is a Federico Fellini connection, not only in your Christian name, obviously, but also with your family. So tell us about that. Yes, of 

course, because I am, my name is Federico in honor of Fellini. Because my grandfather in seventies built up this company, the company that is, uh, called Compagnia Leone Cinematografic, together with Fellini.

Then Fellini went out in order to produce six TV movies. They did just one, The Clown. That is one, uh, great movie of Fellini. We're proud of it. And it's shown all over the world. Till now, it was a co production with German and France. And we are very proud of it. 

Talking about Fellini and the history of Italian content production, filmmaking, and television, it really sits apart from a lot of other international markets.

It's very unique, I 

think. 

So, within that Italian industry, tell us about how your business perhaps sets apart from the others in its own right. 

Yeah, thank you for the question. Uh, we, we have in mind the, our audience. We do our film and our series for, for an audience because it's the industry. that makes you and the relationship that makes you, uh, in order to, to do the movie, to do the series, to build up, uh, financing and producing the movie.

But, uh, I, I think that Once the film got to the market, it's the audience that find out the way to grow up. 

And so there's a wide range of projects within Compagnia Leone. Give us a sense of what sort of projects you're currently working on and maybe some of the highlights over the last couple of years.

Uh, yeah, or as I told before, 

uh, we are, uh, both in theater and TV series, movie industry. So I'm, I like to work with, uh, young director, young talents to build up something to the audience that's new, uh, the research on, on the new talents. And in the side of TV, we, we did a big work last year. One of the biggest, we did the.

In our life, because we did a lot of several success for Rai in the 70s, 80s and 90s. And the last year was Bruce Katz's by Disney Plus, The Lions of Sicily. That came from an incredible success of the book and with the directing of Paolo Genovese. And this is, it was already broadcast by RISE on September and October now with a very good success and we are happy of it because working with a studio with Disney Plus based in Italy is a great opportunity to have financial support and producing support and also from, from the side of the marketing, the show has a great success in LA, of course, but also in the United States, in the UK and Europe.

And we're working on the sequel because it's a true story of Sicily and what the audience like. It's a different story about the Sicily before mafia and with the sun, with the sea and with a story that take real story that take the very interesting. 

Now, obviously your business is rooted in the sixties and seventies, but change is one thing that's always present in the content industry.

And obviously we've seen streaming platforms really dominates the market. Particularly in drama over the past few years, how are you adapting your strategy to remain competitive and create content for these streaming platforms? 

It's a good question because it's something that all the market is with the game of the platform thing, what can works and you got several things, several issue and solution for this.

Yeah. But in this moment that we can't say of crisis, but reformulation of the market and of the business, we see that each time it's more important the IP, something that the network, the platform or the broadcaster don't have to build up something from nothing. And here are the books and also real life.

I'm working on several biopic. Singer and actor always try to find something that the audience wants to live again. It's this important for us. 

And MIR is also about co productions, isn't it? It's an important co production market for the Italian industry. How are you approaching co productions? Is that something that's, that's very important to you?

Yeah, very important because it's in our DNA, uh, to co produce with other, uh, enlarge our possibility of audience. Of course, uh, as we said before, the, the platform gives you the opportunity to, to go in hundred market. That it's difficult to, to go in, in another way, but now it's very challenging because, uh, now, uh, we are returning to use the market where the sensibility is more.

Near, what can I say, German, France and Spain, mostly. 

They're your natural co production partners, you think? 

Yeah, exactly. And also something that, it's something that if you take interest of one country, You have subsidies and you can get also other interests. And there's some genre that is easier to do it.

Some is impossible like comedy. The comedy is the US comedy and all the other countries has his own comedy. Not all. For remake and sequel, it's difficult, but it's very challenging, but it's very interesting to do this job. 

And finally, Federico, so looking at the future, we've seen an enormous amount of turbulence and development and evolution over the last five years.

Looking forward, To the next five years. How do you see the industry changing shape in five years time? 

I think that the best content people needs, the audience needs content. And they offer now, for example, here in Italy, there's a big concentration of this. A transnational group that only Italian producer companies, but they are not really Italian.

I am like some other Italian independent producer, and I work for my film in, with the criteria of economicity. And, uh, results from this, from the field. What can I say? It's not the same field as a company with 3 billion each year and me. And I, I think that, um, diversity is something that can help to survive because we are, uh, here to make proposal and to try to find our way.

If you are too small, it's impossible, but the government and the regulation, the institutional can have to defend us from the big company. 

Federico, thank you. It's been fascinating speaking with you. Thanks for taking time with us here at MIA. Good luck with the rest of the market and, uh, we'll see you very soon.

Thank you very much. Ciao. Thank you. So my final guest on this week's MIA special, direct from Rome, is Riccardo Mastropietro from Pisci Combattente. Fighting fish, I believe. I've just found out. Yeah, fighting fish. That's correct. All right. Thank you for joining us. and interrupting a very busy market. First of all, and I know you're actually involved in the Italian Producers Association as well as being a factual producer in Italy.

But first of all, tell us about your business and what sort of content you produce. 

About our business, we are involved in factual production for major Italian broadcasters. Not only Rai, but also Mediaset and Warner Bros. Discovery. We started our company in 2005 and step by step we grew up And now we are producing the Rai with Le Ragazzi.

Actually it's a TV program about women. We are just starting the 18th season. It's the prime time, two hours. And it's about the story of women during the decades of the Italian recent history. So we start from the 40s until today. And we mix the interview of different women trying to have a feminine perspective.

Fiction of Italian history. This is our best program, our best show. And of course we produce other factual and factual entertainment also for one of birth discovery. 

Okay. And the types of stories that you tell as a factual producer in Italy, what makes you different? What sort of, what is your unique DNA if you like?

I hope we 

have a unique DNA because we started not just a business company. I was a film editor for almost 20 years. My sister, she's out there from almost 30 years. The other part of the business is a film editor. The three of us have built up this company. company as professionals, not just as business men or women.

We are able to produce tailored programs. That's why, even if we are a small company, our programs are always so well, welcoming by broadcasters. They, they ask us to, to produce this because they know the passion that we put inside every single production. 

So tell us about. The Italian Producers Association, the work that you're doing with them, all producers everywhere are having a hard time.

The business is shifting, the market's changing. Tell us about what are the main challenges that Italian producers are finding in the factual market right now. 

The main adventure, I can say, for an Italian producer is to see his own production broadcasted abroad in an international broadcaster. It's really hard, in particular for factual, for Italian factual producers.

This is, in part, for the nature of the format that is really local. That's majority of Factual, but also is about the fact that majority of producers of Factual, they don't have this wide view about what is abroad. I used to meet people that never went in a foreign market, uh. Watching what is outside, what is producing outside Italy.

Okay, so you're saying it's the market and the industry here. When the factory is quite inward looking, it's not really looking to the rest of the world. 

Yeah, that's why I'm involved with giving a hand to me just to try to local producer to see what is a broad, uh, in, in Rome. Staying in Rome so they don't have to, to go to, I dunno, to meet or to real screen summit.

They can stay in Roma and have a confrontation with other producers and broadcasters from abroad to let them understand what's the television outside Italy and hoping they will open their minds and having success also outside Italy. 

Okay, and what's the reason do you think then for The Italian factual market not being necessarily international, 'cause there's not really any fault formats market here as well.

What's the reason for that? 

The reason partial is from the, the, the, the answer I told, I told you before, because they have no, uh, idea. What is the, what is the recipe that you need to be international? I think there is not a perfect recipe. Every product, every everything you are going to produce. It's always, must be structured and have a, uh, a specific recipe depending in which country you are going to, to be broadcast.

But the, the structure of the format, uh, must be something that can be adapted abroad. And this is not so easy for, uh, for the local producer to understand which are the main structure that you need to build up a solid building. 

And so when it comes to the market and commissioning, is Italy the same as everywhere else where there's been a real drop off in the amount of commissions that a lot of the major broadcasters have been making domestically in Italy?

Yeah, if you mean about the Italian broadcasters, they usually prefer to have a confrontation with the Italian producers. It's about co production with a producer from abroad. It's different if it's a co production with a, with a broadcaster from abroad, not about a producer from abroad. Local television always seem to, always want to have the Italian producer on board.

Yeah. 

And finally, just looking ahead in this world of technological change that we've been speaking to lots of people on this show about. How do you see technology and the rise of social media, how do you see that affecting the factual market in Italy? And is that something that you're, that's atop of your agenda within the Producers Association that you're talking to your members about?

About technological advantage, about the socials, of course they can help in producing programs. The most important technical revolution that is now facing us in reality, we can talk about artificial intelligence. That is the most critical in the good and the bad. It's the most critical technical revolution we are facing now.

Because of course it could be helpful in many parts of the production. It could be really risky also. So I think it's like you got a Ferrari, but you still have to have your own license to drive. So you have to be really careful on, uh, on, uh, using artificial intelligence. It could be helpful. It happened also to us that we had a host in an episode of our production and she missed a word in a sentence.

So we use Artificial Intelligence that just for that word, but I have to ask to the host if I could do that because I'm reproducing her voice. But that was just to repair a mistake. So this is the most technical revolution 

we are facing up. About social media. Attention, I'm talking about really it's the attention economy.

When the number of people, particularly younger audiences that are coming through, they're not watching as much TV. So. I'm just wondering if that is something that the Italian Factual producers are taking seriously? 

I can answer quite easy, I don't think so. I think they don't care so much about the Factual.

They're not going to produce Factual thinking about devices different from television. There are just a few of them. But, if I have to be honest, the rest of the producers, they just have in their mind, uh, television. 

Just finally, just going back on to the point about artificial intelligence, are you, as a producer's body, speaking to Italian broadcasters about how you use this and what they will accept, what level of AI use within productions?

Are you in discussions with them about that, or is that still a little bit early? 

No, until now we, we don't have any I have a question from, uh, from Italian broadcast about the using of artificial intelligence. I think it's all on our own risk, using it or not. In the way we used it last time, it was just really something not important.

But if I have to think about the last panel I moderated last year here in MIA, it was about the use of artificial intelligence. In the invention, uh, uh, of the formats. So in that way, if I'm going to come to you, you broadcast and you stop producing with the pro the format, uh, with me, and you pay also for the format.

What happened if you discover that the format was created by a artificial intelligence? So it is a fact of the intellectual property, but that is the south of something that low. He's still really embarrassed about this topic, and there is no legislation at all about that. 

There isn't anywhere. I guess it's a question that we're all having to wrestle with, I think.

Riccardo, thank you very much for your time. Really enjoyed our quick chat. Great to see Factual being represented so much more at MIA this year than last year, and I know that's something that Marco Spagnoli is driving, and we spoke to him at the beginning of the show. Riccardo, all the best with everything.

Enjoy the rest of MIA. Thank you. That's about it from Rome. I hope you enjoyed the show. As always, thanks a lot for listening. TellyCast was produced by Spirit Studios and recorded in Rome. Don't forget to subscribe to TellyCast on YouTube for weekly videos featuring interviews with the movers and shakers in the TV and digital content industries.

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