Italian producer Mario Gianani has revealed his pleasure at reuniting with Lorenzo Mieli in their new Rome-based company OUR Films in a talk on his career at the Les Arcs Film Festival in the French Alps.
Gianani was at Les Arcs with actor-director Paola Cortellesi, who received the festival’s’ Prix des Femmes and attended a screening of her Italian 2023 box office hit There’s Still Tomorrow.
The movie, which has grossed $50M worldwide ($40M of which was at home), is Gianani’s most successful production at the box office in a career spanning more than 85 film and TV credits which also include HBO hit drama My Brilliant Friend and EPing Conclave.
The Les Arcs talk was one of Gianani’s first international appearances since officially announcing in August that he was jumping ship from Fremantle-owned Wildside to set up new Rome-based company OUR Films with long-time collaborator Lorenzo Mieli and the support of French content group Mediawan.
Gianani and Mieli previously worked together under the Wildside banner, which they created in 2009 by merging their respective banners Outside and Wilder Film, before going their separate ways in 2019 when the latter set up The Apartment.
“We separated because after so many years of working separately but together, we wanted to [work] on our own for bit,” said Gianani.
He said the break had led them to understand that the pleasure of working together was higher than going it alone.
“Together we’re stronger. This is a moment in which you have to think twice before you do something. You have to challenge your ideas. You have to be strong, because it’s a very, very tough environment, a very tough market,” he said.
“So the joy of regrouping was immense and you can tell by what we’re doing now, the slate. We’re super happy with what we’re doing. This [taught] us a lesson that with this job, when you combine forces with someone who shares your passion, it’s always useful and… clever.”
Gianani played his cards close to his chest in terms of the Our Films’ slate, saying the company would be making announcements in early 2025.
Speaking more generally, the producer said the trend of confirmed film directors segueing into series was over for now, suggesting that streamers and TV channels were no longer offering the types of budgets and visibility that had previously lured in movie directors.
His former company Wildside had been at the forefront of this trend with shows such as The Young Pope by Oscar-winner Paolo Sorrentino and My Brilliant Friend by Saverio Costanzo.
“What drives the talents in the film space to go into TV is the possibility to have an extensive narrative but also count on the possibility that the narrative is very well regarded, meaning they’ll be highly promoted and be distinctive in that space because they’re used to films, and films have this marketing trend.”
Gianani suggested that streamers – on the basis of their data analysis – were no longer looking for grandstanding shows but rather safer genre-style shows, that have traditionally played on TV channels.
“I’m not sure that kind of genre show appeals to very established directors. The White Lotus is a great show, but I’m not sure directors will kill themselves to do an episode of The White Lotus,” he said, adding he thought the show was “super well done”.
“A director wants to impose his vision on TV, and I think that’s difficult nowadays and vice-versa, he added.
He questioned what kind of viewer numbers Alfonso Cuarón’s Disclaimer, starring Cate Blanchett and Kelvin Klein, had delivered for Apple TV+.
“I don’t know the data for Disclaimer, but this is one of the highest directors in the world, an amazing casting. Does this make a difference for a streamer like Apple in terms of… we’ll see, we’ll see. But I feel the streamers are more cautious. Before, when you threw them a huge name, they would run with it. Now they ‘yes, but’, and we know there is less investment.”
Questioned on whether this meant a new golden age for feature films, Gianani suggested that filmmakers had remained faithful features even at the height of the streamer-fuelled content boom.
“Filmmakers have always wanted to make films and use TV sometimes, to alternate between movies… even the directors who made films for the streamers at the end of the day always wanted to come back to confront themselves with real audiences in cinemas,” he said.
“Cinema has content that TV won’t make and directors know this.” he said, citing the example of Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez.
“I feel Emilia Pérez is a masterpiece. I watched the movie, and I said ‘F**k’. This is a movie that no TV will ever produce,” he said.
He acknowledged Netflix’s acquisition of the Spanish-language musical in certain territories and its Oscar push for the film but suggested it was unlikely a project like this would have been greenlighted by a streamer.
“I think from the very start, if you pitched something like this for a TV show it would be tough,” he added.
“There’s no blame here but if you analyze the data and watch what the audience wants, the audience is predictable and TV wants a product that they can predict…because the risk is huge. They’re doing their job,” he said. “Film can take more risk.”
