PRESS RELEASE


More Than Zero Crossmedia Festival is back

 

Digital creativity meets at Milan’s Triennale on the 18th of June 2009

 

Milan, 18.06.09 – Step out into the garden to talk about creativity. Today the second edition of More Than Zero Crossmedia Festival opens at Milan’s Triennale. The festival is an event created and organised by More Than Zero, a non-profit association born with the aim of developing digital creativity in all its forms. Communications, audiovisual and ICT professionals, students, teachers, journalists, opinion makers, trend setters, advertisers and broadcasters will bee invited to take part in the creation of crossmedia communication projects.

 

The event will include a series of lectures and panels, which will introduce the launch of contests and call for entries by companies who are looking for creative ideas that can be adapted to any kind of media: Web, TV, radio, cinema, alternative media. The best ideas will be selected and the authors will participate in the pitching sessions held during More Than Zero Crossmedia Festival’s next event, on the 4th and 5th of November 2009.

 

The association More Than Zero is active during the whole year through the project Cantieri Digitali della Nuova Creatività Audiovisiva (Digital Factory for a New Audiovisual Creativity), a permanent workshop funded by the Cariplo Foundation, dedicated to new creative professions arising from the digital revolution. The festival’s objective is to offer a space where a national and international network - marketplace can meet to integrate different planning and operational stages of the content production chain in areas such as entertainment, brand and advertising, exploiting both the Web’s participatory potential and the possibilities offered by face to face interaction between those offering and those looking for innovative contents and creativity.

 

The marketplace’s metaphor is that of a cross between technology and nature, a crossmedia garden which is the leitmotiv of the www.morethanzero.it website. More Than Zero’s white bee turns the nectar of creativity into honey in a beehive made up of potential clients, in which ideas become prototypes and products. In the Triennale’s Hall of Honour a real garden will be created thanks to Paolo Buroni’s immersive multivisions, Skitsch’s furniture objects and Gianni Grosso’s Living Trees.

 

Giorgio Monaci, Director of the Economic Activities and Innovation Sector of the Provincial Council of Milan, will introduce the festival’s numerous panels. The first one, focussing on Italian Creativity 2.0 – a project by Cross Creative, funded by Forum Net Economy (Provincial Council of Milan and Chamber of Commerce) and by Telecom Italia – will analyse the latest trends in the collaborative models made possible by the Web, linking technology with communications: from Enterprise 2.0 to Social Branding and on-line co-working. Telecom Italia will present U station, the first portal devoted to multimedia productions in Italian universities, and I think, the new technological platform to put into practice collaborative working models and to share ideas and projects. I think has been adopted by Cross Creative, a new all-women company devoted to crossmedia communications, to societing and branded contents, which is launching the first “content factory 2.0” for the co-creation of content for communications agencies, broadcasters, content providers, non profit organisations and creativity professionals. The panel will be moderated by Riccardo Luna, director of the Italian edition of Wired.

 

More Than Politics, a workshop on innovative political communications funded and supported by the Provincial Council of Milan, will be introduced by Pasquale Maria Cioffi, consultant for the Economic Activities and Innovation Sector of the Provincial Council of Milan, will follow. The panel will include a live link with on-line bloggers, examples of e-democracy and the point of view of young “digital natives” on politics, with Mtv and Rolling Stone Magazine. Carlo Antonelli, director of the magazine, will be the moderator.

 

During the afternoon, a series of case studies, which anticipate various call for entries, will be presented: Current Tv on investigative video-journalism, Radio R101 on new ideas for radio and its web-based developments, Urban Screen, on new formats for media facades as alternative media and Yam 112003 on Web TV.

 

In More Than Zero’s spirit of collaboration, the super contest Cirkus, by Shado, will be introduced to the public. It will be an occasion to meet in person the creators of Cirkus, an on-line competition aimed at discovering ten original ideas for Internet TV: interactive formats, web celebrities, comedy shows. The ideas will be produced by Shado.tv, a company working in the areas of Internet TV, branded entertainment and the monetization of digital media properties.

Martin Ericsson, creative director of The Company P (Sweden) will present the international best practice “The Truth About Marika”, a Swedish production winner of the International Interactive Emmy Awards 2008 at the MIPTV in Cannes as Best Transmedia Format, produced by The Company P and Swedish public TV channel Sveriges Television.

Advertisers and TV professionals will discuss brand entertainment as an antidote to the crisis of traditional advertising. In this context, the new company Cross Creative will launch a call for entries on ideas for mediamix brand entertainment.

Cinema too, as a form of digital storytelling, finds a place in More Than Zero’s Digital Factory (Cantieri Digitali): the panel’s objective will be to identify new production and distribution forms offered by the Web. The Agency for Cinema in Milan, with which More Than Zero shares the mission of creating a database of audiovisual creative professionals, will discuss distribution in Italy, while filmmaker Matt Hanson will present the case history of co-created feature film  “A Swarm of Angels”.

Finally “BALLA. The Night of Digital Futurists feat. Kode9”, in collaboration with Xplosiva, will mark the end of the day: djset, clubbing and performing arts, a mix between different artistic languages with guest star Kode9, in association with Firetrap.

 

 

The Festival is organised by the Cultural Association More Than Zero, founded in 2007 by two “girls” who have always been working in the world of media. Laura Tettamanzi, researcher and consultant on digital and interactive media, has been Director of the “Creative Web & TV Festival” for Milan’s Triennale and co-founded “Meet the Media Guru”, a series of lectures with the key international players in the field of digital culture and innovation. Liliana Forina, author, TV producer and consultant on crossmedia communications, has co-directed the first editions of the “Numero 0 Merano Tv Festival – New Formats for Television”. In 2009 the third “girl” joined in: Marina Brezza is a creative director, experienced in the field of business communications and brand entertainment, who in the past collaborated with Laura and Liliana in organising festivals devoted to new formats, and has co-directed “KinderKom”, a festival on multimedia content for children. After working on their own for a while, all three started to believe once again in the possibility of organising a festival on innovation in creative content production, with the help of many brave collaborators.

More Than Zero Crossmedia Festival (www.morethanzero.it) is a project by More Than Zero – Cantieri Digitali, supported by Fondazione Cariplo, Forum Net Economy – Provincial Council of Milan and Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with Cross Creative Milano and Telecom Italia.

 

For further information – More Than Zero Crossmedia Festival’s Press Office:

Presscom

Marco Marinelli - 347-2780731 - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Francesca Maroni - 0731-200470, 347-9565452 – This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it