After Per i soldi e per la gloria, the story of Italian cinema continues through the voices of its most important producers. If the first volume focused mainly on the great dynasties and the adventures linked to an unrepeatable season, spanning from auteur cinema to comedy and products designed for the international market, in "Champagne and Bills" Monetti and Pallanch direct their research towards the figures who experienced firsthand the transition from cinema in theaters to home video and television distribution. Amid gripping tales and often hilarious anecdotes, the collective portrait of an extraordinary group of dreamers and adventurers unfolds before our eyes. They attempted, with varying degrees of success but with the same admirable courage, to transform the crisis of an industry and a model of cultural production into a new opportunity. Their journey took them to scale Hollywood, engage in dialogue with major American studios, and realize the dream of a European cinema capable of speaking to different types of audiences, countries, and cultures.