Stories Across Borders: How audiovisual storytelling enhances territorial cooperation
04/09/2026
On Thursday, 3rd September, the Interreg Italy-Croatia Programme organised Stories Across Borders: How Audiovisual Communication Enhances Territorial Cooperation at the Veneto Region’s permanent event space at the Hotel Excelsior on the Venice Lido.
As a yearly recurrence, the event brought together Interreg projects, filmmakers and institutional representatives to explore how audiovisual storytelling can help communicate the places, people and ideas at the heart of territorial cooperation. The event was moderated by Cristina Valentini, Communication Officer of the Interreg Italy-Croatia Programme, and opened with encouraging remarks by Simonetta Mantovani, Head of the Managing Authority of Interreg Italy-Croatia, together with the representatives of the Italian and Croatian National Authorities, Francesco Martelli and Stella Arneri.
The event then celebrated the Interreg Cooperation Day, organised by the National Contact Point of the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme together with the Veneto Region’s Territorial Cooperation and European Macroregional Strategies Unit. The session was moderated by Rita Bertocco, Head of the Unit, in conversation with Francesco Manfio of Gruppo Alcuni, who presented ‘The Fairy Tales - We Tell Them’, a project funded by Interreg Italy-Slovenia.
The project was conceived to give children the role of storytellers. Schools in the Italian-Slovenian cross-border area were invited to rediscover and reinterpret local fairy tales, legends and traditions, turning children’s ideas into animated stories. The initiative involved nearly 900 Italian-speaking and 50 Slovenian-speaking students, who produced 51 storyboards and contributed to a mini-series created by Gruppo Alcuni and Slovenian partner Invida. The series was subsequently brought to audiences through Rai Yoyo and RTV Slovenija.
The spotlight then moved to REEL, an Interreg Italy-Croatia project presented by Cristina Piscitelli of Apulia Film Commission and Paola Ravenna of the City of Venice. REEL puts cinema at the centre of territorial promotion, supporting the production of eight short films directed by filmmakers under 35 from the Programme area and exploring the relationship between audiovisual production, places and cultural heritage.
Later, the journey went deep below the Adriatic Sea with Carlo Cerrano of Università Politecnica delle Marche, who presented MAPA, an environmental project of Interreg Italy-Croatia that deals with biodiversity protection. Combining scientific research and audiovisual storytelling, it created a documentary to challenge the common perception of the sandy seabed as an uninhabited desert.
The projects’ audiovisual work then took centre stage as the filmmakers themselves shared their creative process behind the scenes and at the role audiovisual storytelling can play in making territorial cooperation more tangible and engaging.
Jacopo Chessa, director of Veneto Film Commission, conversed with Stefano Chiavarini, Executive Producer of ‘My First Day of Summer / Angelo Azzurro’ (REEL project) , Silvio Franceschet, director of ‘Girare a Venezia’ (REEL project and City of Venice), and Davide De Benedictis, who presented ‘Inhabited Deserts: A Journey Among the Grains of Sand’ (MAPA project).
The event closed with final remarks by Silvia Comiati, Head of the ERDF Regional Programme of the Veneto Region, focusing on the importance of creating synergies between European funds and programmes and ensuring that different funding instruments can complement each other in support of shared territorial objectives.
Across very different projects, the same idea kept coming back: audiovisual storytelling gives those stories a way to travel. It can bring distant places closer, make shared challenges tangible and turn cooperation into something people can see and feel.
Videos from the event are available in the link box.
