On 11 October, Rome’s Cinema Barberini hosted a panel titled ‘Archives, Market and Free Access: Value, Cost and Social Use of Audiovisual Heritage,’ moderated by Marco Spagnoli, MIA’s Deputy Director and Head of Doc & Factual. Leading players from Italian outfits Doc/It, Istituto Luce, Fandang and Anica, as well as international trade body Focal International, took the floor.
During their brief introduction, Spagnoli and Doc/it’s president Francesco Virga touched upon several topics including the increasingly central role of archives to produce documentaries and series, conservation, restoration and the legal issues concerning orphan works, which have “a very limited life” and “no lawyer will help you to access.”
The mic was then handed to Enrico Bufalini of Istituto Luce, who spoke about the body’s archive, active since 1924 and including around 500,000 documentaries and newsreels (for a total of 8,000 hours of footage) and its 5.5 million photographs. Luckily enough, most of these works have been already digitised thanks to the funds provided by the PNRR (Italy’s Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan).
The demand for archive content is being driven by speciality channels and platforms, but also from podcasts, which are being quite successful at intercepting younger audiences, he pointed out. Specifically, he mentioned the acclaim received by La Ballata dell’Andrea Doria, told by actor Luca Bizzarri and available on Spotify.
Luce is also offering discounted plans to license its archive, based on territories and quantities: “We’re trying to give [our] independent producers the tools to be competitive with their international co-producers. We also produce and co-produce documentaries with other independent players, and this gives us the opportunity to use our archive right away,” he added. Expanding the offering are colourised archives as well as family archives gifted and acquired from private citizens, which are “particularly helpful for narrative documentaries focusing on people rather than historical events.”
Next, Carlotta Ca’ Zorzi, Head of Business and Legal Affairs at Italy’s Fandango, spoke about the firm’s recent sports docufilm Una Squadra, set between 1976 and 1980 and revolving around Italy’s national tennis team taking part in the Davis Cup held in Chile under Augusto Pinochet’s regime. She defined it as “a very demanding work” where the producer was also serving as the writer-director. This made the process smoother and allowed the production team to focus on the final quality of the project.
She talked about the challenges of clearing the rights, especially when the rights holders were hard to find, and pointed out how legal evaluations were needed “case by case” and “on single use.” She called for more flexibility, explaining how the current system in place is too rigid, such as demanding that producers pay for a whole minute of footage when they only need a few seconds. This forces producers to make hard choices.
Marcello Mustilli, a lawyer who he has been working with documentaries for many years, stressed on the issue of reuse, present “at various levels.” Among the many challenges, he cited privacy issues and “problems of context,” which imply that, over time, the content may have become “harmful to someone” (e.g. victims or minorities). He added that, at the end of the day, there are only two options available: gain total clearance or take on controlled risks.
“Us lawyers started working on this [issue] even before the decree approved on orphan works, which is a shield helping to demonstrate [the creators’] good faith. [The goal is to] reach a balance between what to add and what to remove, while bearing in mind risks,” he said.
ANICA’s secretary general Francesca Medolago Albani spoke about the efforts ANICA and Doc/It are making to bring together players and subjects “who normally don’t talk to each other,” so that the body of law can become clearer and more flexible. She also praised the three-year digitisation programme approved by former Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini, which involved “significant state investment” but whose benefits on circulation and access should be still properly measured.
Things don’t seem to be easier in the UK, argued Amanda Huntley of Focal International towards the end of the panel. Despite her intense efforts working w
ith legislators, there have been “only answers on some problems,” but “the process is much harder that one can imagine” owing to the “horribly bureaucratic system” which may take up to 6-8 months to greenlight the use of material. “This doesn’t mean you’re not liable to pay a fee later on, though. […] If an author challenges you, you will be liable,” she added.
“We organised a platform where you, as a producer, can submit the research or footage you require. [Your inputs] go to all our 140 members, which are both public and commercial archives, from big ones such as Getty to small regional public archives. […] You might find it covers many of the hurdles you’d want to jump over, such as finding the material, the copyright holders and good copies! At Focal, we strive to bring as many archives as possible as members of our organisation,” she concluded.
