|
“There’s still tomorrow” achieves global success, screening in over 50 countries
by Elisabetta Brunella
 2024 isn’t yet over but we can already affirm that “C’è ancora domani”/”There’s still tomorrow” is going to stand out amongst the Italian films most widely viewed abroad during the year.
Paola Cortellesi’s dramedy, presented at the Rome Film Festival, was released in Italian theatres on 26 October 2023 and immediately started to take the international markets by storm starting with Switzerland.
On Swiss territory, purchased by Morandini Film Distribution, this début by an actress turned director, succeeded in becoming the third most successful Italian film of 2023, following “Le otto montagne”/”The eight mountains” and “Interdit aux chiens et aux italiens”/”No dogs or Italians allowed” in the space of only a few weeks.
In 2024 the story, set in the post-war period just before the first Italian elections open to women, has continued to confirm its international success. Sold in Europe and the rest of the world by Vision Distribution, this box-office champion in Italy, where it even beat “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer”, was released on several markets around 8 March, thanks to its main theme: female emancipation, narrated through the story of Delia, a woman who, despite being the victim of abuse, never stops fighting for a better life for herself and her children, seeing the vote as a means of social progress.
It was in this perspective that a special evening was organised on 8 March in Rabat,promoted, among others, by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura and the Cinéma Renaissance, that was based on the preview of Cortellesi’s film, released in Moroccan cinemas on 13 March thanks to distribution by Film Consulting Event.
It was released on the same date in France, where this great, low-budget, black-and-white film, distributed by Universal Pictures, gained almost 600,000 spectators and significant praise from the critics.
Again in March “C’è ancora domani” was presented to Belgian and Dutch audiences by Arti Film, whilst April saw its release in Germany and Austria, through Tobis Film.
“C’è ancora domani” also reached Sweden in March, thanks to the initiative of Folkets Bio, the “people’s cinemas”, a circuit run by an association of 30 screens in 15 venues, including both towns and villages. Exhibitors, then, but also distributors, with a special eye for arthouse films which, through this virtuous form of vertical integration, succeed in reaching audiences in small centres throughout Sweden’s vast territory.
The formula through which Cortellesi’s debut as a director reached the United Kingdom and Ireland is even more surprising: starting in April, it was distributed by the VUE chain, also a company of exhibitors for 92 cinemas but - unlike the Swedish Folkets Bio - of a purely commercial nature.
What is most striking is the fact that “C’è ancora domani” was VUE’s first experience as a distributor - a company which, as declared by its CEO Tim Richards in an interview with Screen Daily, intends developing its imports of productions from different European countries, such as Poland, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, to meet the demands of audiences interested in quality cinema from abroad.
In the same period, Cortellesi made her mark as a director in Spain as well, another of the continent’s leading markets, where her movie has been distributed by BTeam Pictures.
It reached Greece, thanks to Weird Wave, as well as Portugal and Poland, countries where it was distributed respectively by Il Sorpasso and Gutek, landmarks for the distribution of films made in Italy. Purchased in the Baltic area by Best Films, “C’è ancora domani” came to Latvia in May and Estonia in June, where it was successfully screened in both arthouse cinemas and mutiplexes. The summer brought it to Slovenia and Croatia thanks to the initiative of Kino Mediteran.
In European countries not yet on the list, the tragi-comedy directed and interpreted by Cortellesi will be coming in the next few months, with dates already announced for Denmark (28/11), Lithuania (29/11) and Norway, a market where it will be released on Christmas Day.
Parallel to its circulation on the Old Continent, “C’è ancora domani” was purchased by distributors in Asia, Oceania and America. Here audiences in several countries, such as Ecuador and Argentina, have already appreciated Delia’s story of hardship and hope, distributed by CDI Films which also holds the rights for Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.
The film, which has been compared by the critics to neorealism and works deeply rooted in Italian culture but capable of speaking to spectators of the most widely varying nationalities, will come to Australia in November, thanks to Limelight, which is also the distributor for New Zealand.
Proof of the universal message that “C’è ancora domani” manages to communicate at all latitudes are also the multiple purchases ranging from Mexico and Brazil right up to China, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan, for a total of around fifty markets.
Delia’s route from her home to the polling station has not stopped in Rome…
This is an updated version of the article printed in the Venice special issue of Cinema & Video Int'l, the MEDIA Salles media partner.
|
Cinema ‘al fresco’ on the Tuscan Coast
The
The grand finale on this tour of movie theatres along the Etruscan coast between Cecina and San Vincenzo, comes with the Cinema Arena Etrusco, set in the midst of a pine grove only metres away from the sea. Here, too, seats are arranged on different levels: behind the stalls, stadium seating has been set up, covered not only by the soaring pine trees, but also by roofing, so that even in the case of summer rain, the evening programme can go ahead. The great advantage, which makes spectators forget the very basic seating in cinemas under the stars is the cool air which in the evening - screenings start at 9.45 pm - attracts audiences perhaps even more than the film itself… 
