20/04/2012 - Fewer than 16% admissions on April 15, 2012. Production fares well also thanks to tax credit

"It’s all change for the growth in consumption of Italian cinema". This is the worrying observations from the president ofANICA Riccardo Tozzi, who has presented industry data for 2011 and the first months of 2012 together with the producers’ president, Angelo Barbagallo, and the Director General for Cinema, Nicola Borrelli (download the PDF with all the data).

"It’s a product which has lost its appeal" says Angelo Barbagallo with regards to that -16% admissions registered on April 15, 2012. And if there is any doubt over the fact that this is a market facing difficulties and going through a transformation, we have to batten down the hatches and think carefully about the quality of films, production costs, training and education to cinema.

155 films were produced in 2011, 13 more than the previous year and investment on the part of Italian capital has also been relatively stable compared to 2010, reaching €333M (plus 90M in foreign capital). The director Nicola Borrelli confirms that direct public funding has decreased (€28M) but indirect intervention via tax credit has grown significantly (€68M, that is, 21% of total Italian investments).

If Italian cinema consumption stops growing at the box office and in the US it is definitely in crisis, the problem also extends and above all to exhibitors. Many town cinemas are on the brink of failure and risk disappearing, warns Paolo Protti, Agis President. And digitisation won’t be finished before 2015, according to the president of distributors Anica, Richard Borg. Anem President Carlo Bernaschi suggests using the formula of the city multiplex, with expanded programming, to give town cinemas a boost.

(Translated from Italian)