For the first time, the Italian Trade Agency opens a pavilion with 11 Italian companies in the Creative Industries Expo within the most important US independent film and music festival in Austin, TX

An exhibition that looks to the future of both music and the arts, and technology. There will be 11 companies in attendance, including innovative startups and players in the audiovisual market, which will make up the Italy pavilion at the Creative Industries Expo of the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas; the leading event dedicated to independent films and music in the United States.

 

From smart devices that facilitate learning to play the guitar, to a smart music library that finds the right soundtrack for each video, and a gamut of AI systems that support companies and creatives: this year will showcase the first structured Italian presence at the Texan event, which, although mainly involving the entertainment world, hosts an actual expo of innovative technologies. The Italian mission, coordinated by the Italian Trade Agency (ITA), brings together gifted players from the field of audiovisual arts and innovation by promoting Italian creativity as a strong brand in the American and international markets. For this reason, to support the companies involved in the Italian Night coordinated by ICE on March 14, three emerging Italian artists will be participating as guests of SXSW: Baseball Gregg, Her Skin and Prim.

 

“Austin joins our calendar of important U.S. trade fairs where we promote our ecosystem in all its components”, explains Alessandra Rainaldi, Trade Commissioner at the Italian Trade Agency – Los Angeles Office. “This time the focus is on Italian creativity, truly a part of our DNA, which manifests itself in the talent of our young innovators, as well as in the audiovisual industry and in music”.

 

“Through a mission led by ITA, we are taking part in South by Southwest for the first time, bringing Italian creativity and innovation into an event which, since 1987, is a strategic meeting point with the colossal American entertainment and innovation industry,” Rainaldi further explains. “The slogan for our pavilion, “A Taste of Italian Creativity,” sums up our strategy for the enhancement of Italian companies overseas. Austin joins the schedule of significant US trade fairs, including CES in Las Vegas, introducing the market to an entire industrial ecosystem made up of highly specialized and competitive companies in the most strategic sectors of the world economy.”

 

SXSW Creative Industries Expo and the Italian pavilion

The expo, which will remain open during the 4 main days of South by Southwest (between March 12 and 15, while the festival takes place between March 10 and 19), will bring together innovative companies from all over the world, to offer a perspective on how creativity, through technology, will change society in the coming years.

 

For the first time, Italy is participating in this area with its own pavilion, in which 7 innovative startups and 4 companies from the audiovisual industry will be the leading stars. Among the startups, the many solutions that stand out are based on artificial intelligence optimizing business-related data or creating adaptive marketing campaigns with generative AI, but there are also those for creating interactive three-dimensional virtual worlds, and an innovative smart device that uses LEDs to learn how to play guitar by showing finger placement. Among the four audiovisual companies, on the other hand, we find film production companies and a platform that optimizes the retrieval of high-quality music for soundtracks.

 

Among the scheduled events is the Spritz, Tech & Sounds evening at the Stephen F Austin Royal Sonesta Hotel on March 14. An opportunity for meeting and networking with industrial players and investors, featuring pitches from the pavilion’s innovators and showcases from three Italian artists participating in South by Southwest: two singer-songwriters, Prim and Her Skin, both from Modena, and Baseball Gregg, a duo from Bologna.

 

The Music Industry Happy Hour is scheduled on March 16 at the Fairmont Hotel, organized by ITA together with SXSW in order to create meeting opportunities between representatives from the Italian and American music industries, as well as the Italian artists participating in the event.

 

ITA

The Italian Trade Agency is the government body that supports the development of the country’s companies on global markets, by promoting attracting foreign investments to Italy. The Agency is present all over the world with a vast network of offices, providing consultancy and training to Italian SMEs, and implementing modern marketing and communication strategies to promote Made in Italy excellence around the world.

 

The Los Angeles office coordinates the mission at SXSW with a team dedicated to the audiovisual and innovation industries.

 

The IT Innovation Desk supports young talents and startups on the US market with various services and programs to facilitate fundraising and market validation.

 

Among these is the Global Startup Program, now at its third edition, an acceleration-incubation initiative offering 100 Italian startups every year a chance to expand in 9 foreign markets – the US (New York, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco), France, UK, Germany, United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Japan, China, and Singapore – with an 8-week program.

 

The audiovisual and music team promotes Italy as a destination for film productions and the synergy between Italian and American industry players, also thanks to the dedicated italymeetshollywood.com, platform, as well as initiatives such as American Film Market, Game Developers Conference, Kidscreen Summit, Billboard Latin Week, and Audiovisual Producers Summit.

 

One of the most interesting opportunities offered by ITA in the US is Innov.it, the world’s first Italian Innovation and Culture Hub, a project by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, inaugurated last year in San Francisco. An outpost for Italian innovation in the heart of Silicon Valley, where ITA, the Italian Cultural Institute, and the innovation services managers Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Entopan Innovation work together coordinated by the Italian Consulate General in San Francisco.

 

 

The startups

 

AR Market | www.armarket.it | Rome

AR Market creates three-dimensional and interactive virtual spaces, usable in augmented or virtual reality. The virtual spaces are created starting from videos, images, or a scan of real indoor or outdoor environments, and can be used for events, museum or commercial experiences.

 

Contents | www.contents.com | Milan |

Contents is a tech company that develops SaaS solutions for the creation and implementation of creative content through a Generative AI platform. The content can also be created for adaptive and targeted advertising distribution on the web.

 

Dataprodigy | www.itsprodigy.com | Milan |

Dataprodigy is a start-up that offers digital transformation services. Its platform allows you to produce reports automatically by exploiting artificial intelligence and interpreting requests formulated linguistically. The system can be integrated with main company management systems.

 

Dispell Magic | www.competitoor.com | Modena |

Dispell Magic supports brands and retailers with Competitoor, a Price Market Intelligence platform which, thanks to artificial intelligence, monitors the price fluctuations of products in its catalog that are also sold by competitor companies, making it possible to implement automatic dynamic pricing solutions.

 

EOS Data | www.ovum.ai/eos | Milan

EOS is an AI-based platform that helps companies and creators make data-driven business decisions, automatically performing sentiment and emotion analysis and topic detection with real-time feedback through an intuitive interface operable with natural language.

 

Tensive | www.tensivemed.com | Milan |

Tensive is a biomedical company that develops biomaterials for regenerative medicine. It has developed resorbable breast implants useful for regenerating part of the tissue removed with a lumpectomy, which is used to remove a tumor. The prosthesis degrades over time, making room for new tissue.

 

Visual Note | www.visual-note.com | Milan

Visual Note has created a tool to facilitate learning to play guitar: it is a “tape” of LEDs that are applied to the fretboard of the guitar, and which light up under the keys to be pressed, as the piece is played. The device connects and is controlled via app.

 

 

Audiovisual

 

Rome and Lazio Film Commission Foundation | www.romalaziofilmcommission.it/ | Rome

The Rome and Lazio Film Commission Foundation supports the audiovisual industry by assisting regional, national and international productions in various stages of project development, from scouting locations around the area to post-production.

 

Revolver & NinaFilm | www.revolverfilm.it | Rome

Revolver and NinaFilm are twin companies that produce and co-produce documentaries screened at the most important film festivals in the world. They also offer services, including post-production and soundtrack work, as well as being distributors for the television market.

 

Sounzone | www.souzone.com | Turin

Sounzone provides a library of selected music tracks that can be used as a soundtracks for games and videos, within which it is possible to search and automatically sync music to games or videos in natural language, thanks to AI, without having to search by categories such as genre or mood.

 

Vari Productions | www.vari.productions | Turin

Vari Productions creates music and creative solutions for artists and businesses. Services range from songwriting and production to audio and visual branding.