15/06/2005

The Salento Film Fund, a swallow sometimes makes a summer

Although the Salento Film Fund is a only a provincial fund, it is a real gem in the Italian cinema landscape. The fund was created at the beginning of the year in Lecce (Puglia); it consists in 600,000 euros used as a direct financial support to the production, distribution, and promotion of films and TV programmes. Priority goes to coproductions involving companies based in other regions. What is taken into consideration is how much a production shot in Salento spends on hiring local staff.
The beneficiaries of the new fund can either be production companies based in the Province of Lecce, production companies which intend to spend a significant amount of time filming within the Province of Lecce and would hire local professionals, or production companies which bring projects co-produced by at least one company from the Province of Lecce.

Grants are divided into two parts : 55% of the grant is a free contribution, the other 45% are repayable over five years, without interests. By no means can a grant represent more than 30% of the total budget of the film if it is a feature, and 50% if it is a short or a documentary. The grant cannot exceed 100,000 euros for full-length features, 30,000 for documentaries, and 20,000 for short films.
Deadlines for this year’s applications have already been established : the first one was scheduled for June 30, and the second is on October 30, 2005.
‘This fund was designed to attract external partners, but it is mostly a means of encouraging the emerging local film and TV production activities,’ director Luigi De Luca explained. ‘There are no conditions to apply, but we will definitely privilege projects which emphasize the importance of the Province of Lecce in the Mediterranean area and support the "Euro-Mediterranean" relationships’.

Info: Giuseppe Bianco : Tel. +39 0832 683226, ufficiocrediti@provincia.le.it