Mob series Gomorra put Italian drama back on the map for international acquisition execs, but was it a flash in the pan or the start of something bigger? Richard Middleton reports.

Gomorra

Italy has made more than its fair share of cultural contributions to the world but its television series have rarely managed to make much of an international impact.

Excuses vary, with blame being levelled at producers for sticking to less risky genres and at networks for concentrating on their core domestic audience and, in some cases, cutting investment in the genre. Language problems and, until recently, the lack of a tax incentive have compounded the problem.

But Italian drama is now shaking off those shackles and increasingly looking further afield. James Murdoch, 21st Century Fox’s co-chief operating officer, recently said Italy’s drama industry had “big, unexpressed potential” and pledged US$55m for Sky Italia’s scripted efforts.

Although the broadcaster has since been taken over by the UK’s BSkyB, Murdoch’s words – whether or not they were just a timely charm offensive – vocalised the increasing ambition of Italy’s scripted production industry.

What’s more, the international community is sitting up and taking note of Italian shows, says Eleonora Andreatta, director of fiction at free-to-air pubcaster Rai TV. “Markets are changing rapidly and so are the tastes of the public. As happened with Nordic drama, there’s now a wide window of opportunity for Italian shows that’s going to open further,” she says.

While The Killing helped to power the Nordic scripted revolution, last year’s Gomorra, coproduced by Italian networks Sky Cinema and La7, local prodcos Cattleya and Fandango, and German distributor Beta Film, has played a similar role for Italian drama. It has been sold into more than 60 territories, while a US remake is in the works with The Weinstein Company.

Andrea Scrosati

Part of its appeal, and something being replicated in the subsequent flurry of Italian shows, was its real-life context, which identified it as Italian in much the same way as the moody skies and noir elements defined Scandinavian drama.

“The entire production was done in the exact area where these events took place and the cast comes from that area,” explains Andrea Scrosati, exec VP of programming at Sky Italia. “In an international context that offers hundreds of new TV series every year, this one raised attention for its ‘neo-realistic’ approach, for the fact that every scene has a real and true flavour that is unique.”

Lorenzo Mieli, president of Italian prodco Wildside, is similarly enthused by local productions and optimistic about their ability to travel, having recently launched two divisions, including TV-focused Wildside Series, to expand globally. “Some Italian ‘brands,’ subjects like organised crime, the Vatican, our history and our food, have great potential in drama,” he explains, adding that the key now is to exploit this potential “in new and unexpected ways.”

While Gomorra might be Italy’s most famous recent export, it’s by no means the first. Rai Uno’s detective series Il Commissario Montalbano, which started airing in 1999, made its way to the UK’s BBC4 in 2011 and Australia’s SBS, while a spin-off, Young Montalbano, is now heading to France 3.

The shows neatly represent the distinct varieties of fare coming out of Italy at present. Sky Italia, with Murdoch’s US$55m promise under its arm, is busy making The Young Pope, set in the Vatican and about an imaginary Italian-American pontiff. Not only is it tapping into the country’s cultural heritage, it’s also making use of production veterans Wildside and Cinecitta Studios to add a serious amount of gloss for global networks.

Squadra Antimafia

A similar strategy was employed on Gomorra, says Giannandrea Pecorelli, CEO at Aurora TV. “It’s edgy and up-to-date, totally in line with the style of the current US drama productions because it’s a project conceived for the niche audience of Italian pay TV with the specific aim to be distributed internationally.”

The approach is being embraced by prodcos like Wildside, though Mieli is not getting carried away just yet. “It’s premature to describe it as a golden age for Italian drama, but Sky’s commitment and the commissioning culture they are pushing – taking risks, innovating the language and the visuals of Italian drama – is a great opportunity for growth. Globally, there’s a shift towards non-English drama as a source of new ideas.”

The Young Pope will have as-yet undisclosed European partners, while comic book adaptation Diabolik, produced by Italy’s Cattleya, brought together the Sky platforms in Italy, Germany and the UK on a scripted series for the first time.

Both shows are being produced in English, and this international approach, at least for pay TV drama, will continue, says Scrosati, whose attempts to ramp up quality have seen a local incarnation of Israeli therapy series In Treatment developed for the network. Elsewhere, he’s working on political crime series 1992-Mani Pulite and has aired two seasons of Romanzo Criminale, about a criminal gang based in Rome during the 1970s.

Lorenzo Mieli

“In the next few years there’ll be enormous potential for European productions,” he says, adding the timing constraints of the US model and the shows produced there, which “sometimes are not so relevant for international audiences,” will give added appeal to Italian drama. How much input non-Sky players will have or want following BSkyB’s move to bring the German, Italian and UK operations under one umbrella remains to be seen.

“Foreign sales are a growing source of revenue for Italian drama producers,” adds Mieli, who says the result is a “beneficial effect on the quality and ambition of developed shows. International audiences are slowly getting used to watching non-English products. It’s a cultural shift and a huge opportunity.”

This opportunity overlaps both pay and free-to-air broadcasters, but the challenges are greater for the latter, which must focus on local audience demands, often with lower budgets.

“The situations for drama productions commissioned by Rai and Mediaset are very different,” says Pecorelli, who admits budgets can struggle to compete with other European markets, such as the UK. But global sales are possible, he says, highlighting Rai’s long-running Mafia-focused series La Piovra, which was sold to MHz Networks in the US and Channel 4 in the UK, as well as the success of Il Commissario Montalbano.

“We have a mandate to reach a much larger audience than pay TV, ideally as large as possible, and this forces us to remain within certain narrative limits while trying to break other genre boundaries at the same time,” he says. “It is challenging, but also exciting.”

Vincenzo Mosca

Vincenzo Mosca, head of Italian distributor TVCO, adds that competition and changing audience demands are helping to drive creative output, while prodcos have “developed diversified slates to face the new challenges coming from the web, or pay TV.”

Pecorelli’s current slate reflects this, with shows such as period drama Al Paradiso delle Signore (In Ladies’ Heaven) for Rai Uno, set in a Milanese department store during the 1950s, and period drama Vanity, for Mediaset’s Canale 5, which tells the story of a family of Italian bathing suit designers.

Such series have international potential, argues Antonino Antonucci, director of fiction at Mediaset, as do some of its own long-running series, such as action drama Squadra Antimafia, now into its sixth season. The broadcaster is also looking at international copros to bolster budgets and is planning to shoot in English, as is Rai. The latter is currently working on an English-language adaptation of Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose, a murder mystery set in a 12th century Italian monastery, slated for 2016.

Antonino Antonucci

Alongside these growing global ambitions has come the recent introduction of tax incentives that offer Italian producers a 20% rebate and foreign firms a 25% tax credit. Both Pecorelli and Mieli believe the system could revolutionise the industry, enabling prodcos to develop shows independently, in turn handing them more rights and empowering their entire creative vision. This could then open doors for foreign networks or distributors.

It’s too early to assess just how great the effect will be, but pay TV’s cash infusion into drama has already been felt internationally, helping to create new kinds of shows. If tax breaks can help producers working to tighter budgets, a new wave of Italian creativity could be on the cards.