Rainbow celebrates the return of the Winx

What is about to end is, for Rainbow, the twentieth year since the worldwide release of the Winx, celebrated in the summer with a party in Rimini, attended by fans from all over the world, and with the issue of a special stamp dedicated to the fairies created by Igino Straffi, founder and ceo of the group (which will reach a turnover of over 120 million euros in 2023). A celebration that anticipated the return of the animated series to TV, which in 2025 will be aired on RAI in Italy and Netflix worldwide, a reboot from the first episode with a different cut from 2D, covering both the kids target audience and that represented by those who watched the cartoon 20 years ago and who will have a wide calendar of special events to attend and young adapt product lines.

"I am an entrepreneur who believes in dreams and I hope to be an inspiration to all those who have a dream in their drawer," says Straffi, who started out as a cartoonist, of himself. The story of what is now a global entertainment content company began in 1995, when the Macerata entrepreneur switched from comics (Rodolfo Torti and Sergio Bonelli being his references) to the cartoon industry. The mission, then as now, remains that of creating stories by expanding the audience that can enjoy them: a team of 900 professionals guarantees quality and diversification to a planetary audience that reaches as far as cinema and television. The latest is called Mermaid Magic, a fantasy saga starring mermaids distributed worldwide with Netflix.

Headquarters in Loreto, where it all began and where Tridimesional, the publishing house that turns content into books and comics, is also based. Also here, Straffi has set up a nursery school, where the children of the employees learn Italian and English using creativity, a project that has been enriched with the International School in Civitanova Marche, the first private, non-parish school of international standing recognised by the Ministry of Education that goes all the way up to high school and with a bilingual course and the possibility of practising sports.

Over the years, Straffi's entrepreneurial dream has also expanded outside the Marche region: a studio in Rome to generate computer animations internally (in cgi mode), so as to maintain control over the most important productions; another three in North America, for high quality productions also on behalf of third parties and in particular at the service of Hollywood; an Academy in the capital, a strategic reservoir where all figures in the service of special effects and video games are trained. Colorado Film, with offices in Rome and Milan, is also part of the Rainbow galaxy: 'We wanted to grow in productions also using real actors,' explains Straffi, 'to respond to the market that has become richer with the arrival of platforms, which require live action productions. The latest arrival is Poliarte in Ancona, a fine arts academy specialising in fashion and design, a training excellence in the Marche region, which will now be able to count on new courses dedicated to the professions of filmmaking.