This September 23-28, Prix Italia will finally return to Rome following a 26-year absence. Last year, the itinerant Prix — which is sponsored by RAI, Italy’s state broadcast organization — was held in Capri, the location of its very first edition in 1948.
Keeping with tradition, this year’s event will unfold in two venues: Trajan’s Market and the Exposition Palace (which is a 10-minute walk from Trajan’s Market).
According to Prix’s Secretary General, Guarino Tarsilla Maria Karina Laterza (who mercifully goes by Karina Laterza most of the time), Trajan’s Market will be Prix’s headquarters. It will house small working groups dealing with several aspects of radio and television, the EBU Executive Board meeting (to be held on Wednesday, September 25), and the various juries that will select the winners of 11 prizes from the realms of radio, TV, and the Web, including three “special prizes.”
The 61-year old Laterza, who was appointed Secretary General in 2017, is a trained TV journalist who’s been with RAI since 1991. Prix’s president is Britain’s Graham Ellis, Deputy Director, BBC Radio.
The seminars, which will celebrate “Diversity in a Global Media World,” will be held at Casa Di Rodi, which is adjacent to Trajan’s Market.
The Exposition Palace will house larger working groups, the Eurovision Song Contest Workshop, and a number of creative forums. The Prix schedule also includes up to three daily debates that are open to the general public.
Among the numerous events geared to professionals is the eighth annual Morrione Prize presentation, which offers awards to the best investigative TV news reports from journalists under 30 years of age.
Roberto Morrione (1941- 2011) was a TV journalist who pioneered RAI’s 24-hour TV channel. Prior to the awards ceremony, the folks behind the Morrione prize will host two news-related seminars. The first will be held on Monday, September 23. The second is set for the following day. Both will take place at Casa Di Rodi.
The Young Laboratory (or YLab), in cooperation with Italian universities, is a Prix event in which students are invited to submit 90-second video clips. Also planned are video premieres of TV shows in competition around Rome’s suburbs.
Just as it did in 1993, when the Prix was last held in Rome, this edition will offer an international springboard to RAI’s new management team, which includes chairman Marcello Foa, a 56-year-old journalist and university professor; and president Fabrizio Salini, 53, a former FOX Italia, Sky Italia, and La7 TV network executive.
VideoAge coverage of Prix Italia began in 1981 and is documented in a RAI publication now available online at: http://www.videoageinternational.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/videoage.pdf
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