email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

INDUSTRY Italy

Discussions held in Venice over European strategies for cinema

by 

- André Lange from the European Audiovisual Observatory presented 2011 data from the four largest countries in the field, painting a grim picture for Italy

“These are unsurprising numbers. But the unfavourable comparison with the rest of Europe should push us to intervene locally and nationally as quickly as possible,” declared Nicola Borrelli, general director of cinema at MiBAC, the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, at the end of the conference entitled “Strategie europee per il cinema”, which took place yesterday during the Venice Film Festival under the initiative of ANICA and ANEC.

Data, presented by André Lange (foto), from theEuropean Audiovisual Observatory, registered 111 million tickets sold in Italian cinemas in 2011, compared to 216.6 million in France, 171.6 in Great Britain, and 129.6 in Germany. Although there is some good news: 41.7% of films shown domestically were Italian in 2011 (compared to 37.8% in France), public financing showed a comparatively negative picture. Regional and state investments for 2011 amounted to 185.8 million euros in Italy, while Germany invested 344.1 million, Great Britain 365.9 million and France 632.9 million.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Investment in the production line of business was also low in Italy with 432 million euros spent in Italy in 2011, compared to 1389 million in France and 1466 million in Great Britain. The number of films produced in Italy however was high, with 146 films in 2011, putting the country way ahead of Germany (92) and Great Britain (90). Many of these were low-budget films though, and never reached distribution.

Silvia Costa, a member of the European parliament’s culture and education committee and Creative Europe speaker for 2014/2020, which is the new programme to support European cinema together with other cultural and creative sectors, had some reassuring words. She expressed her intention to fight in parliament for culture’s importance to be properly recognized, giving a signal of reversal in trends after an era of cuts. But for Riccardo Tozzi, the president of ANICA, the association representing cinema and audiovisual industries in Italy, Creative Europe’s endowment is negligeable if you take the entire continent into consideration. “Europe is an extraordinary land of content production, it should allocate extensive funds for its production and diffusion.”

Lionello Cerri, president of ANICA operators, thinks that EU programmes like Creative Europe and Cinema Communication, should be the source of “a project that allocates funds to cinemas themselves in order to allow public services to increase and diversify.”

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

(Translated from Italian)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy