Italy on Demand

ITALY ON DEMAND 

If you want to watch an authentic Italian movie and you live in the States chances are that you have very few options. 

You can wait for an important festival to come to town (if it comes and if your town is lucky enough): in New York for example, there is Antonio Monda's Open Roads a festival that every year for a week in June brings the best of contemporary cinema, the best directors, actors and stories through the Lincoln Center; or you could browse some old collection of Classics drive to a Blockbuster (if they are still open)  and often have to pick from film-school Criterion-style set of titles, powerful masterpieces but that require a lot of context. You could look at the local art-houses and indie theaters but maybe they are far or expensive.  Or you could browse the internet, hopefully legally, but even there the choices of foreign movies on Netflix are few and not always available on instant watch. 

These kind of questions and mindset brought about a company like Italy On Demand created by tech-savvy and broadcast professional Flavio Arzilla. 

Through agreements with various Italian distributors and networks Italy On Demand offers a choice of italian movies, in italian with subtitles both in English and in Italian (for those whoa re learning or want to challenge themselves). 

It's a combination of classics and contemporary hidden gems, the kind of movies a real Italian would see in theaters, from a comedy, to a political satire. There are also cartoons, documentaries and a few local channels and for all the soccer fans abroad or the ones that grew up in the States still attached to an italian team, there is a soccer section.

The service works like Netflix with a small monthly fee and one can pick between renting a feature or watching it immediately. Just turn on your computer or if you have an Apple TV or Roku and enjoy the selection on demand.

This is a growing enterprise, catered to those who want to feel connected to Italy and perhaps learn or teach the language better, and in bilingual families keep the kids entertained and connected to their roots. There are millions of Americans with Italian origins and even more who are just fascinated by the culture, the country or want to impress their girlfriends or boyfriend at a restaurant. Maybe you're starting to learn Italian and you're required to be fully immersed in the language, but the closest thing that comes to it on your TV are cooking shows or short segments . 

Imagine that you're boarding a big International plane to Italy and the little screen in front of your seat lights up with some choices of entertainment for every need and ages, to pass the time. Well, here even if you're not an actual plane, you are definitely taking a journey like it always happens when embracing a culture.

The creator and president of the company Flavio Arzilla is very passionate about the project and looking forward to reaching out to as many people as possible and expand the service. 

So next time you have to take the SAT Subject test in italian, an AP course, a cooking class or explore your roots or share a family story, you could easily add this tool as one more window into the soul of Italy. 

Benedetta Grasso