October 14 Strike Against Entertainment Industry Cuts
On October 14, entertainment industry workers will hold a strike, blocking all activity in cinemas and theatres, as well as a large demonstration in Rome, to protest recently proposed cuts to the FUS (Visual Arts Fund) of the 2006 Finance Bill (see article). As part of the strike, cinemas adhering to the initiative will be closed and films scheduled to come out on October 14 may find their release date pushed back. One such film is Roberto Benigni’s much-anticipated The Tiger and the Snow, which is being distributed on over 800 screens.
Recently, there has been talk of cuts to the film sector so substantial as to pose a threat to the survival of large festivals such as Venice. Under the proposed bill, funds allocated to the cinema could, in fact, drop from 84m to 54m euro annually, to which can be added another 7.5m cut to the Lotto funds that in 2005 provided 8m euro for cinema production, thus reducing the lottery revenue allotment to 500,000 euro next year. According to daily newspaper La Repubblica, the cuts to the film sector would reduce the budgets of the following institutions accordingly: Venice Film Festival, from 5.6m to 2m euro; National Film School, from 11m to 5m; Production Fund, from 33m to 12m; Art Cinema Fund, from 2.7m to 1m; Promotion Fund, from 11.5 to 4.5m.
“The attack against the entertainment industry and citizens’ fundamental cultural rights has reached new heights these past days,” reads a letter published jointly by all the associations that represent industry workers – AGIS, ANICA, ANAC, SLC, CGIL, the Italian Actors’ Union, FISTEL CISL, the Italian Actors’ Forum, UILCOM UIL, and the UILCOM Actors’ Committee. The 2006 Finance Bill proposes further cuts of 40% of all public resources to the entertainment industry.
“All of this,” continues the press release, “is exacerbated by significant regulatory delays that risk blocking film-related activity and totally paralyzing the live entertainment industry from next January 1. An operation of this size, in the already extremely precarious situation in which the entertainment industry finds itself due to the policies adopted thus far, will cause a drastic reduction in the number of events offered to the public and will seriously endanger the existence of approximately 5,000 companies and the jobs of over 60,000 industry workers, of the 200,000 that the sector employs overall."
(Translated from Italian)
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