During the RomeFilmFest, at the Casa del Cinema, Univideo (Unione Italiana Editoria Audiovisiva), the umbrella organization for all of the main companies within the Italian Home Entertainment industry, presented the collateral initiative “Tutto il Cinema per sempre: il ruolo dell´editore audiovisivo nel futuro della comunicazione” (“All cinema all the time: The role of the audiovisual editor in the future of communication”).

Speakers at the conference included Univideo President Davide Rossi; Artistic Director of the Casa del Cinema Felice Laudadio; author of the essay from which the conference took it’s title, Gaetano Stucchi; Nicola Zingaretti, the European parliamentarian from the European directive on authors’ rights; and the head of the Communications department at Rome’s La Sapienza University, Mario Morcellini, who emphasised the “reassuring increase in cultural consumption” as DVDs and new technologies have proven two great changes: “The spectator has gone from generalism to personalisation, and this has changed the mode of communication”.

Laudadio spoke of his personal conference as Artistic Director of the Casa del Cinema, which after two years has been able to sustain hundreds of public and free screenings, thanks to digital technology. But the real news delivered by Laudadio was that “we are working on a large international event that will take place in Venice and be dedicated to the DVD”.

Zingaretti, who defined the role of the audiovisual entrepreneur in reference to the work being done by the Commission, emphasised that “the EU is moving along two tracks: programmes such as MEDIA that back the audiovisual industry, but above all the harmonisation that will be created with the new directive that defends intellectual property, which will force member countries to report all violations of the directive as a crime, with sanctions and prison sentences equal for all”.