Piedmont’s presence at this year’s Venice Film Festival goes well beyond the traditional exercise of regional promotion. With nine projects represented across different sections of the Italian gathering, the region has effectively used the festival as a showcase for a film ecosystem whose recent growth is increasingly visible both on screen and behind the scenes.

That was the central message of “Piemonte: Films, Funds, Future”, the industry panel organised by Film Commission Torino Piemonte at the Italian Pavilion on 6 September. The event brought together the film commission’s president, Beatrice Borgia, and director, Paolo Manera, producers behind selected projects and representatives of CNA Cinema e Audiovisivo Piemonte, while also unveiling new investment and funding measures.

The nine-title slate stretches across virtually every level of the festival: Marco Bechis’ Back to Buenos Aires and Nanni Moretti’s It Will Happen Tonight are both in the main competition, while Alina Marazzi’s The Girl with the Leica and Tommaso Landucci’s Children of the Monkey compete in Orizzonti, alongside Alessandro Ingaria and Simone Massi’s short The Sense of Earth. The regional presence extends to the International Film Critics’ Week with Marco Santi’s opening film, Giaffa the Great, Roan Johnson and Davide Pavanello’s closing film, Rider, and Elisa Chiari and Francesca Trovato’s short Eggshells, as well as Alessandra Lancellotti’s Southern Peasants in the Giornate degli Autori’s Venetian Nights.

The numbers provide the clearest indication of scale. By 1 September, 140 audiovisual projects had already been produced in Turin and across Piedmont in 2026, accounting for more than 700 shooting days. The region attributes that volume to a combination of production services, increasingly structured support mechanisms and, above all, the continuity provided by the Piemonte Film TV Fund.

Its second 2026 call opened on 31 August with €3.92 million available, bringing the fund’s overall annual allocation to close to €8 million. Thirteen projects had already been backed during the first session. For the regional authorities, the objective is not simply to attract shoots, but to use audiovisual investment as an economic-development tool.

“The record presence of nine Piedmontese titles at Venice confirms the quality and growth of our audiovisual system,” said regional culture councillor Marina Chiarelli and productive activities councillor Andrea Tronzano, stressing that cultural investment and economic development must advance together. Their stated aim is to strengthen local companies and professionals while increasing the territory’s attractiveness, and generating employment and investment.

What makes Piedmont particularly interesting as a case study, however, is the breadth of the funding structure around its headline production incentive. Film Commission Torino Piemonte is progressively building a system covering different stages and formats: the Piemonte Film TV Development Fund continues with the support of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, while the Piemonte Doc Film Fund is approaching two decades of activity supporting documentary production.

Venice also provided the setting for the announcement of a new €150,000 contribution from Fondazione CRT to the Short Film Fund, earmarked both for project financing and for international promotion. The intervention marks the foundation’s first direct support for the scheme and further broadens the public-private architecture underpinning the region’s audiovisual strategy.

Fondazione CRT president Anna Maria Poggi described the initiative as a new chapter in the organisation’s long-standing involvement in cinema, with a particular focus on strengthening short films, internationalisation and opportunities for emerging talent. For Borgia, that collaboration between the public sector, banking foundations and industry professionals has become the defining feature of the Piedmont model.

“The strengthening of the Piedmont system comes from solid and growing collaboration with public institutions, but also from the support of banking foundations: a public-private axis that is the real distinctive feature of our territory,” she said. Borgia argued that the 140 productions completed in just over six months, together with the strong Venice presence, demonstrate that the model is already generating “value, employment and concrete results”.

The next challenge is qualitative as much as quantitative. CNA Cinema e Audiovisivo Piemonte president Mattia Puleo stressed that attracting productions must increasingly translate into stronger local businesses, sustained employment, skills development and greater access to national and international markets. The ultimate ambition, he said, is a regional industry capable not only of hosting productions, but of generating, developing and exporting them.