25/09/2003 - The Holding company in Rome is combining forces with the Milan Fiera and the Venice Biennale for the "Joint Venture Project": from 2004 this new body will be responsible for promoting Italian cinema and creating new market strategies

The new Italian initiative for developing the cinematographic market and overseeing promotion abroad is called the "Joint Venture Project". The enterprise will be run by the combined forces of Cinecittà Holding S.p.A., the Venice Biennale and the Milan Fiera.
There was a presentation of the new project in Rome today, outlined by representatives of the three organisations, in the presence of the Culture Minister, Giuliano Urbani. The joint venture will be operative by the start of 2004 and as well as promoting Italian cinema on the domestic market and abroad, it has the brief to develop Mifed (the international film and multi-media market held in Milan, the next edition of which will take place in November) and to increase the efficient use of joint institutional resources.

"We need to create a complete package of effective services for our cinema", was the challenge laid down by minister Urbani, who had sparked off the changes last December when he issued guidelines for the future of the organisations (the ministry is the major shareholder in Cinecittà Holding).
The aim of this new initiative, outlined by the MD of Cinecittà Holding, Ubaldo Livolsi, is to maintain a high profile position on the international market; make the system more efficient in the face of international competition: increase the financial returns by making better use of the project’s complementary resources and optimise costs through synergy. According to Livolsi, "we will have to attract funding and investment from outside the State and start up activities to enable us to become self-financing".

(Translated from Italian)