16/10/2006

Industry professionals from both countries met in Rome to discuss co-productions at the second edition of the French-Italian Film Forum, held last Thursday and Friday and organised by Unifrance, the Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC), the General Direction for Cinema and Cinecittà Holding.

According to the CNC, in 2005 there were 23 French/Italian co-productions – a number on the rise and one which includes 12 French and 11 Italian majority productions. Among these are 15 bilateral co-productions (eight French majority and seven Italian), as well as quite a high number of financial co-productions (six each).

While emphasising the quality of the co-production agreement , which has linked the two countries since 2000 (with authorisation for minority productions at 10%) and does not draw any distinction between strictly financial co-productions and those of an artistic and technical nature, the professionals present at Rome have nonetheless insisted on the need to create a bilateral measure similar to the French-German mini agreement in order to bring about a dynamism that would selectively assist a minority partner, who currently has little impetus to invest.

This call made to politicians has been supported in particular by Frédéric Brillion (Epithète Films) and Yves Marmion (UGC YM), who were co-producers with RAI Cinema on The Stone Council [+see also:
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trailer
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Meanwhile, Riccardo Tozzi (Cattleya) repeated the excellence of the French model of production funding and regretted the difficulty of exporting it to Italy because of pressure from lobby groups.

However, the director of the Italian Producers Association also drew attention to the lack of flexibility in the French system with regard to Italian majority co-productions and requested a review of the co-production points system, a point of view shared by Andrea Occhipinti (Lucky Red) and Rosanna Seregni (Sintra Film).

(Translated from French)