Video Age International October 2016

48 October 2016 V I D E O A G E W hen Prix Italia was founded in 1948 (mainly for radio, as television was in its infancy in Europe), it was a very exclusive meeting place for public broadcasters. In fact, it was the only gathering where you could get to know your clients before Bernard Chevry created MIP-TV in 1963 in France. In those years I was producing, co-producing and distributing content internationally by myself. So exclusive was the Prix that it took me 17 years, until 1965, to be admitted as an observer at the Prix’s Florence venue, sometimes being useful in serving at a roundtable as someone from the other side of the fence. In the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s the Prix was a sort of wonderful holiday for me; I would do business casually, work from the hotel in the mornings, screen with my broadcast colleagues from the music departments in the afternoons, and have parties in the evenings. This took up a week. On Sunday, RAI, Prix Italia’s organizer, invited me and other participants to an excursion to show off stunning sites followed by a superb lunch. Monday, the jury held its press conference, and if the winner couldn’t stay until the end of the festival they at least already knew whether they had a Prix Italia or maybe the RAI Prize. The screenings of all entries were most important for me. The jury would view them in a separate room. We could discuss the merits of the programs amongst ourselves and talk to the producers or directors who were present. This useful exchange doesn’t exist anymore in the age of the server and personalized viewing, except at Avant Première, organized every year during the Berlinale by the Austrian International Music and Media Center (IMZ). I remember winning the Prix Italia prize twice with Tony Palmer’s A Time There Was (a profile of English composer Benjamin Britten) and At the Haunted End of the Day (English composer William Walton) in 1981 in Siena and 1982 in Venice. When, in 1987 Palmer submitted Maria Callas through a broadcaster (and by far the best film he ever made, the jury told me), they simply could not give him the Prix for the third time. I also recall at Prix Italia in Vicenza in 1987 we saw Cinderella , a wonderful ballet with the choreography of Maguy Marin. Most likely, everybody thought “what choreography but such a lousy recording.” It was a production by Dirk Sanders for France’s TF1 from the Lyon Opera. After the screening, I went back to my hotel room and rang the director general of Lyon Opera to ask him whether he thought a remake was possible. He agreed, and we shelved the first recording and in co-production with Swedish public broadcaster SVT, made a new one that played the world. The year before Channel 4 started, I persuaded Jeremy Isaacs, its designated director general, to join our gang at Prix Italia 1980, in order to get to know his future colleagues and suppliers. A happy gang it was, playing table tennis through the best part of the night, once in Riva del Garda in the underground parking lot of the hotel next to heaps of dirty laundry. And the Prix remained exclusive for a long time, with controllers attending instead of public relations people and the BBC sending out a scout beforehand in order to find out about hotels and restaurants. One day, I believe we were in Venice in 1982, the Prix Italia Bureau changed the rules. Music was lumped together with other documentaries and Beethoven had to compete with Joseph Brodsky. Soon after, the communal viewings disappeared, and these days, I believe that very few commissioning editors still go. By Reiner Moritz A German Distributor’s Fond Memories of RAI’s Radio, TV And (Now) Web Festival Prix I tal ia Recol lect ions In the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s the Prix was a sort of wonderful holiday for me; I would do business casually, work from the hotel in the mornings, screen with my broadcast colleagues from the music departments in the afternoons and have parties in the evenings. Left: Tony Palmer, the winner of Prix Italia 1981. Right: In Riva del Garda, ORF representatives receive the Prix Italia 1980 award After Capri in 1948, 1983 and 1988 and Venice in 1958, 1971 and 1982, this year Prix Italia returned to an island for its 68th edition: the remote island of Lampedusa (shown below).