Fabrica is Benetton's communication research and development centre, created in 1994 from Benetton's cultural heritage. With the completion of the vast architectural complex which houses it, just outside Treviso, restored and expanded by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando, Fabrica is currently enjoying a period of flourishing activity, positioning itself as a multicultural, international entity.

Guided by an international scientific committee, which also supervises its strategic, cultural and communication policies, Fabrica has chosen to back the hidden creativity of young artists/researchers from all over the world. Following careful selection, they are invited to develop concrete communication projects in sectors ranging from cinema to graphics, from industrial design to music, from publishing (Colors magazine and other publications) to new media and photography.

In its role as an applied creativity laboratory (its name comes from the Latin word meaning workshop), Fabrica experiments new forms of communication, following two parallel guidelines: a hands-on approach to training (the young grant holders are invited to "learn by practice"); and interactivity, in terms of both the projects - which are developed through teamwork, involving different roles and disciplines working on a central idea - and cultural identity, whose plurality is guaranteed by the mix of young people from countries with different languages, cultures and attitudes.

In five years of activity, Fabrica's projects have involved diverse partners: from non-profit organisations like FAO and SOS Racisme to cultural institutes and museums of various countries, earning critical praise and awards that have led it to be hailed as one of the most exciting and internationally appreciated cultural centres. In this context, Fabrica Cinema was created in 1998, continuing the systematic intervention in favour of the new independent voices of the cinema of the "rest of the world" (particularly Africa, the Arab world, Asia, Latin America) which has characterised the policy of social communication of the Benetton Group, already main sponsor and partner of the Montcinemaveritˆ Foundation In Switzerland, together with the Division of International Cooperation of the Swiss Foreign Ministry.

Fabrica Cinema's activities include the co-production, under the supervision of Marco MŸller, of a series of important films which have taken part in the major European film festivals. The first film of the 2000-2001 collection, Takht-e Siah (Blackboards), by the young Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf, won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes 2000. Other award-winning films are Turkish director Yesim Ustaoglu's Journey to the Sun (Blue Angel Prize for best European film and Peace Prize at the 1999 Berlin Film Festival), Moloch, by Russian director Alexander Sokurov (Best Screenplay Prize at Cannes 1999) and Seventeen Years by the young Chinese director Zhang Yuan (Silver Lion for best director at the 1999 Venice Film Festival). In addition to these are the awards received through the Montecinemaveritˆ Foundation, including the latest, highly prestigious Golden Lion at Venice 2000 for the film, The Circle, by Jafar Panahi, protagonist of the Iranian nouvelle vague of the last decade.

Fabrica's young designers, for their part, are working on innovative projects regarding products, fashion, interiors and industrial design. These range from the design of new shop layouts to collections of clothes made of paper, recycled denim or, in general, alternative materials. One of these avant-garde projects is Nomad, an interior furnishings system for people on the move who need essential, temporary furniture. Nomad has been patented by Fabrica and is already available on the market.

Activity in traditional media forms, like publishing, has produced a major series of publications, for which Fabrica often handles the photography. Examples include Prayer (a collection of modern prayers for publishers San Paolo), 1000 extra/ordinary objects (the craziest objects of the twentieth century, collected during Colors' ten years of activity), Lavoratori (black and white photo report on immigrant, non-EU factory workers in north-eastern Italy, sponsored by Veneto Regional Council) and Kosovars (potraits of Kosovan refugees in Albanian camps). For the fiftieth anniversary of UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees), that falls in December 2000, photographer/researcher James Mollison is preparing, for Fabrica, a report on refugee camps all over the world. Fabrica's publishing activities also include Colors, Benetton's magazine sold in fifty countries, with seven editions and eight languages and present on internet, whose editorial offices are in Fabrica itself.

Fabrica's young designers, for their part, are working on innovative projects regarding products, fashion, interiors and industrial design. These range from the design of new shop layouts to collections of clothes made of paper, recycled denim or, in general, alternative materials. One of these avant-garde projects is Nomad, an interior furnishings system for people on the move who need essential, temporary furniture. Nomad has been patented by Fabrica and is already available on the market.

New-media projects include internationally award-winning Internet sites, Web design, video art and multimedia events. Project research for new media interacts with Fabrica Music which, following the arrival in 2000 of Andrea Molino, director of the Pocket Opera, Nuremberg, has created a new approach to music. It will officially debut next October, in Rome's Teatro Nazionale during the Roma Europa Festival, with the original soundtrack (a mixture of classic and modern genres) accompanying a multimedia performance.

Villorba, 21st September 2000