An inclusive platform to support talent and the Italian sector for those from the Lombardy region and Milan, with Fastweb Digital Academy and lulm partnering.
MAAD! is born Milan / Animation&Audiovisual / District, the initiative for the creation of a new district aimed at favouring and supporting the development of the audiovisual and animation sector in Italy. Promoted by Cariplo Factory, Asseprim, Animation Italia with the partnership of Fastweb Digital Academy and IULM; including the support of the Cariplo Foundation and Confcommercio Lombardia; the sponsorship of the Lombardy Region and of the City of Milan; MAAD! is a project that is articulated and innovative, finding its home at Cariplo Factory after roughly a year of working on the creation and development.
The nucleus of the new District – a district both ideal and physical – is Cariplo Factory, at Base (Milan, Via Bergognone 34), where the culture of ideas and the culture of making things happen meet and generate new meanings and new forms.
The goal of MAAD! is to construct a platform – open and inclusive – for the evaluation and consolidation of the Italian animation and audiovisual sector, starting from Milan with the professionalization of young Italian talent. The trends of the sector are in fact growing as they represent an extraordinary occasion for our country that has skills, resources, and creativity that is well known all over the world. It has to swiftly consolidate the systems and productive processes of the spinneret to collaborate and compete at the levels of international players in the field.
Training and qualifying young professionals in the audiovisual and animation fields is one of the first jobs of MAAD! to support and give incentive to the development and growth of the sector, giving visibility to Italian talent worldwide, with a long-term economic perspective that is open to new working opportunities.
The first year of MAAD! foresees the settlement and the activation of the advanced training centre (Polo di Alta Formazione) at Cariplo Factory with the opening of three professional courses that will be held at the Fastweb Digital Academy and that are taken care of by Animation Italia: scene making for animation, videogame management and digital storyboarding.
The courses, offered for free to the selected students, are reserved for participants between the ages of 20 and 40. The sign ups are open on 2nd March (requirements for admission and form to take part at www.fastwebdigital.academy) and, after the selections, take off in May and close in September.
Many people who have vast experience in the sector collaborate in the didactics and in the management of the Advanced Training Courses at the Fastweb Digital Academy, with specialization in scene production, character development and series’, right up to the development of videogames, transmedia content, and software for the world, for animation and digital storyboarding.
Alongside the activation of the Advanced Training Course, the MAAD! activity for 2017 is awaiting- amongst other things – two significant moments.
One is the organization of Milano Animation Days, on the calendar for Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd September: the two day event has the goal of evaluating the animation sector and spreading culture. It will offer meetings between stakeholders, moments of analysis of the market, direct comparisons between the production and broadcaster, incomings of personality in the sector across the world, protection, activities that are dedicated to the public, laboratories, and initiatives for children.
The other is the launch of the Executive Master in Animation & Visual Effects that was announced by the Iulm University through their School of Communication, in partnership with Animation Italia. Under the scientific direction of Professor Gianni Canova, the master will begin in the Autumn/Winter season and will finish up with the training of character designers, 2D and 3D animators or storyboard and concept artists on an international level.
The MAAD! 2018 programme, that will be set in stone after summer, predicts the extension of the training offer at the Fastweb Digital Academy and the intensification of initiatives and action taken towards the consolidation and the growth of the District, with the extension to new partners. Amongst others, the Accademia di Brera is already on the programme to give life to a laboratory project that is linked to animation.
The project was born as a platform that was open to including and aggregating all bodies, companies, partners that are interested in sharing and sustaining objectives and the development of the District, placing themselves next to subjects that make up the founding nucleus of MAAD! and thanks to this collaboration, the idea was taken forward.
