#WeAreItaly and very Emilia-Romagna

Many testimonials and cultural content of the region enrich the campaign of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation

Immersive reader

The #WeAreItaly campaign was launched by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation on last March 19^th to promote abroad the most creative and vital Italy even in the days of the COVID–19 emergency. More than 100 video-messages have been collected, sent by Italian and international artists who have generously and promptly answered, and the campaign has moreover spread the many initiatives Italian cultural institutions put and are still putting forward to offer the Italian and international public moments of high-quality cultural entertainment.

The campaign has recorded over 2.5 million views on the social channels of the Ministry and of its network of Embassies, Consulates and Italian Cultural Institutes, and 41 thousand views of the #WeAreItaly dedicated page on the Ministry’s website, where films, operas, theatre performances, readings, concerts, virtual visits to museums and much more were presented – all that can express the Italian deep vocation to art, culture, creativity.

Emilia-Romagna Region immediately shared the campaign and, thanks to the co-operation of its numerous public and private cultural institutions and to its consolidated relationships with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation’s network of diplomatic and cultural Representations, gave a great contribution, relevant both for quantity and for quality – since ever distinguishing features of the rich and varied cultural production of this territory, appreciated and renowned also abroad.

Ad hoc videoclips were produced not only by theatre and dance companies and artists based in Emilia-Romagna but also by Italian and international artists who love this region and worked here: from Aterballetto, to Instabili Vaganti and Teatro delle Albe, or from Nek and Andrea Griminelli to Lino Guanciale and Andy Luotto, and many others who little by little have joined along the way.

Besides the video-messages, digital contents by public and private cultural institutions and professionals of the territory were provided: Verdi 200, Festival Verdi, Bologna Jazz Festival, Cineteca di Bologna, Il cinema ritrovato, the Institutions involved in the Fellini 100 celebrations, Fondazione Modena Arti Visive, MAMbo, Festival Filosofia, and many, many others.

To go on spreading and sharing culture and to contrast the lock down the emergency forced us in, Emilia-Romagna Region is also engaged in the campaign #culturanonsiferma, an online schedule of events by the more than 1800 cultural professionals of its territory. Here too, the campaign was enriched by testimonials and content generously given by international artists particularly near to Emilia-Romagna, as Eugenio Barba, who sent a personal message to Bologna and donated the film Mr Peanut, a character who cannot die, or the National Opera of Ukraine, who expressed solidarity to Italy and especially to Emilia-Romagna with the chorus “Va, Pensiero” from Nabucco by Verdi as a thank to the solidarity showed to Ukraine in 2018 by Maestro Riccardo Muti with the concerts The Roads of Friendship conducted in Kyiv and Ravenna within the Ravenna Festival.

The #WeAreItaly campaign ends with a video report, signed by directors Matteo Botrugno and Daniele Coluccini, collecting the exciting daily diary of the over one hundred musicians, singers, film and theatre actors, writers, performers, dancers, chefs joined in a collective embrace to Italy during the COVID-19 emergency.

As underlined by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi Di Maio and the Deputy Minister Marina Sereni, the campaign closes with a message of hope: "while Italy is preparing to gradually get out from the emergency, the Foreign Ministry is defining a strategic plan to promote Italy abroad that will also involve the world of culture, tourism and Made in Italy. It is a shared commitment to restart from our cultural and creative identity".