Italy offers for all of Europe a digital platform for cinema and culture, called ITsArt, considered the ‘Italian Netflix’, which allows access to films, museums, concerts and shows that take place throughout the peninsula.
Starting this week, the platform offers the European public a catalog with more than 700 content, some free and others paid.
"We want to reach the growing audience of consumers of Italian art and culture around the world", explained this Tuesday the general director Guido Casali, during a press conference held at the Colosseum in Rome.
Available in the 27 countries of the European Union and in Great Britain, ITsART, financed with 19 million euros (21 million dollars) by the Italian government, has the collaboration of around a hundred prestigious cultural institutions on the peninsula.
Through the platform you can see from classic films by masters such as Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini and Vittorio De Sica to live concerts at La Scala in Milan, the San Carlos Theater in Naples or the Opera in Rome.
The documentary section will allow you to visit the most famous monuments and museums in Italy, including the Egyptian Museum in Turin, the ruins of Pompeii and the Colosseum in Rome.
The idea for the platform was born during the pandemic, after important cultural institutions, such as the Museum of the Trades in Florence, without visitors, decided to put their collections online and create virtual content.
The director of the Pompeii archaeological park, the German Gabriel Zuchtriegel, told the press conference that during the confinement "we started making small videos to talk about what we were doing (…) and we had an excellent response" by the public.
They then resolved "make the videos without depending on commercial platforms, stop considering the user as a customer to sell a product (…) and develop our own platform", summarized.
Born "a direct channel between Italian museums for the Italian public, and with an eventual global audience"added.
The platform is divided into three sections: "Stage", with concerts and plays by prestigious institutions, "The places", with virtual visits to parks and emblematic monuments and "The stories", with documentaries and films like "The last Emperor" scored by Bernardo Bertolucci.
Registration to the platform, which already has around 100,000 subscribers due to its preliminary opening in June for Italy and Great Britain, is free.
The official website and application can be accessed on Smart TV, mobile phone or tablet.
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