Anica turns 80. Rutelli: "Come a long way"

“In these eighty years Anica has come a long way: it started from the fall of fascism, went through the period of neorealism, has always maintained relations with the great US cinema. Today it deals not only with cinema, but also of audiovisual and digital and is made up of six unions, Film Producers, Publishers and Distributors, Technical Companies, Digital Publishers and Creators, Audiovisual Media Publishers, International Exporters, as well as the world of animation”. The president of Anica, Francesco Rutelli, thus opens the celebrations for the first 80 years of the company at a time when cinema is experiencing a period of great dynamism and the Association is launching a award for young cinemapromotes a review with eight symbolic Italian films, one for each decade, with the Rome Film Festival, makes its precious historical archive accessible and renews its brand.

The initiatives were presented at the Anica headquarters in Viale Regina Margherita in Rome as well as by Rutelli, by the general secretary Francesca Medolago Albani, by Luigi Lonigro, president of the Film Publishers and Distributors Union, Benedetto Habib, president of the Producers, Patrizia Boglione of Trend Alchemy, creative director who oversaw the new brand and Carolina Terzi, president of Cartoon Italia, a member of Anica. In the room, two monuments of Italian cinema, the producers Fulvio Lucisano and Adriano De Micheli.

Paola Malanga, artistic director of the Rome Film Fest, sent a message announcing a special evening for Fulvio Lucisano at the Rome Film Fest.
The appointments for the association’s birthday were then announced, starting from ‘Anica 80’ Award.

“It is dedicated to promoting new talents in cinema in Italy”, explained Luigi Lonigro, president of the Union of Film Publishers and Distributors Anica. The first edition debuts at ‘Cine – Giornate di Cinema in Riccione and rewards first works – produced with a budget not exceeding 4 million euros and directors aged no more than 45 years – who recorded the highest number of theater attendances between 1 January 2023 and 31 March 2024. The first winners were ‘Palazzina Laf’ by Michele Riondino, ‘Felicità’ by Micaela Ramazzotti, ‘ Romantics by Pilar Fogliati. There will be 5 award categories for each film: director, producer, distributor, leading actress and leading actor.

Another event is ‘A film per decade’: with the collaboration of the Fondazione Cinema per Roma, which selects the films, Anica organizes a review of representative films of Italian cinema, one for each decade of its history. The films will be screened during the Rome Film Festival. Anica then developed a project full digitalisation of the historical archive and all the publications created over the years, to be made freely accessible to the scholarly community. “A sure value for the members and for the sector, but also for all professionals and for the interested general public, from researchers to students”, said Francesca Medolago Albani, general secretary of Anica and of the Anica Academy Foundation of Cinema, audiovisual and digital.

For the 80th anniversary, the association presents a new brand and new identifying logos of the six Unions with the complete restyling of all the websites owned by Anica.