01/02/2005

A rich program indeed for this year's Meetings around art cinema which will take place in Ravenna from the 18th to the 20th of October for a 5th edition: trailers, premieres, seminars, and meetings. This event, organised by the Fice, the Italian art cinema society , will attract cinema-owners, producers, and distributors specialised in art cinema from all over Italy. A selection of short films sponsored by the Fice will be shown, and special art cinema prizes will be granted.

This year, specialised cinema-owners (430 in Italy) will benefit from new European direction which starts applying in February 2005. It organises a lighter procedure for the attribution of the title "art cinema theatre" and multiplies incitements to program art movies, especially national and European ones.
This law Statute n. 28, 2/5/2004 (which replaces Statute 153/1994), specifies that cinema theatres will be considered to belong to the art cinema category if they can prove they have been programming mostly art films for at least two years, especially Italian and European ones for at least 35% and 70% respectively per year.
Art cinema theatres will also get fiscal privileges (under the form of advances on contract, calculated on the basis of the daily net benefit) and a premium on their annual results.

(Translated from Italian)