23/04/2024 - The pair of Italian producers have been presented with one of Bolzano Film Festival Bozen’s Lifetime Achievement Awards

This year, Bolzano Film Festival Bozen (12-21 April) presented one of its Lifetime Achievement Awards to Marta Donzelli and Gregorio Paonessa. We spoke to the owners of Rome-based production company Vivo Film about their humble beginnings and their co-production model.

Cineuropa: It is exactly 20 years since Vivo Film was founded. How was the production company born?
Gregorio Paonessa: Marta and I met at the Donzelli publishing house, which belongs to Marta's family. We both worked there. Vivo Film was born of the desire to build a common project. In 2004, we started filming our first documentaries.

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Marta Donzelli: In the beginning, the intention was to produce documentaries based on non-fiction, inspired by the editorial line of the Donzelli publishing house. So, on many subjects, it seemed important to us at the time to tell the story of reality, but to try to do so with another language. In the early years, we were one of the most active production companies in the realm of documentary film. Then, step by step, we grew. Various successes and awards helped us, such as the documentary My Country by Daniele Vicari, produced in 2005, with which we reached the Venice Film Festival and with which we won a David di Donatello Award for Best Documentary in 2006. In 2007, with a fake documentary by Corso Salani, who made very hybrid works teetering between fiction and documentary, and on a very low budget, we won a Golden Leopard at Locarno, in the Cineasti del Presente section. In 2010, with Michelangelo Frammartino's first fiction film, Le quattro volte [+see also:
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interview: Michelangelo Frammartino
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What was the main motivation for this decision?
GP: Among other things, it was an economic one. With documentaries, it was really difficult to find an economic balance. Most of the authors we worked with definitely didn't belong to the group of writers who are willing, for example, to work for television channels with very specific formats. Making or producing a documentary needs no less energy than a fiction film. With fiction films, we slowly found a financial balance that still allowed us to make a living from the work. Now, we have a dozen collaborators, whereas in the beginning, there were only two of us, with the office in the living room.

You make a lot of co-productions. Is that out of necessity, or was it a specific decision of yours to do so?
MD: Our projects have almost always been co-productions. We very much believe in the value of co-productions, which are a great way to make projects grow, and to enable a creative exchange of talents involved in a project. Then again, co-productions often ensure the wider circulation of a project.

How was it partnering up with Miguel Gomes, who is your current minority co-producer, on the Cannes-selected Grand Tour [+see also:
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interview: Marta Donzelli, Gregorio Pa…
film profile]?
MD: We met Miguel in 2019 because he and I were on the jury of the Turin Film Festival. We wanted to work together, and this project was the perfect opportunity to do so. Part of the film was to be made in studios, and in Portugal, there is no tradition of studios like there is in Italy. From that point, this collaboration was born, which was very interesting, very complex and very intense. The film was partly shot in Asia, and the studio part was mostly shot in Italy. We are all very proud of it; it will be released in Italy on 23 May, after Cannes.

You won an honorary prize at Bolzano Film Festival Bozen. What is your connection with the South Tyrol region?
GP: We have made six films in South Tyrol, with the support of the IDM. And almost all of these movies were presented in Bolzano. Even though I am from Calabria, I feel quite at home here. It was very nice to hear the praise offered by Birgit Oberkofler, the director of the IDM, who recalled that she was on a set for the very first time when we shot Sworn Virgin [+see also:
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film profile] on location. We also have a good relationship with the festival’s artistic director, Vincenzo Bugno [see the interview], who has always supported our projects in Berlin.