It has become harder to make films in Italy

A few months ago, the Ministry of Culture revised the ways in which it supports the production of films and TV series in Italy. The reform came almost a year after the disbursement of state funds had been suspended, consequently halting much of the country's film production – both domestic and international. The amendment to the law introduces new methods for allocating public funds: for films with a budget exceeding 3.5 million euros, i.e., large productions, not much changes, while for those with a lower financial plan (namely small and medium productions), a series of new rules will make it more difficult to access automatic contributions. Specifically, to obtain public funds, small and medium productions will have to pass a selection conducted by a dedicated commission appointed by the government, which will act at its discretion. Essentially, the state will have significant decision-making power over which low-budget films will be funded and which will not. Many observers fear that the governing parties aim to gain greater control over the country's productions, at least among those with fewer financial resources. The declared aim of the reform, however, is to reduce the number of works eligible for some form of state funding, thereby granting fewer resources and limiting what the Ministry of Culture itself has long considered an anomaly in the Italian market: the overproduction of films.

The new methods for allocating public funds have not been well-received by the majority of Italian producers, even though in the past this same group had requested that projects with limited ambitions and poor box-office prospects be prevented from accessing state funding. For many years, in fact, the system of allocating public funds to the film sector also operated through “rainfall” mechanisms, meaning resources were distributed to a wide range of initiatives – without much discretion. Nonetheless, before the suspension of state funds, cinema was a very important sector for the Italian economy, also thanks to the country’s appeal to foreign productions. As Andrea Occhipinti, founder of Lucky Red, explained in an episode of the program Piazzapulita, the favorable tax system for foreign productions had led to many international series and films being shot in Italy. For example, the second season of White Lotus, set in Sicily, reportedly generated around 40 million euros in revenue while influencing the island’s tourist flows. For funding foreign productions in Italy, another fund has been established, which will not compete with the one dedicated to Italian works but will still draw from the same resources. In this regard, between 2019 and 2023, there appears to have been excessive spending, which went out of control precisely due to overly permissive funding allocation policies: financing directed at foreign companies is said to have been the most burdensome in terms of overruns. For 2024, the Ministry of Culture has decided not to issue the usual calls for new public funding, thereby halting much of the Italian film industry and putting companies and workers in the sector in serious difficulty. Additionally, this has made Italy much less attractive to foreign productions, which have thus turned to other countries.

Criticism of the reform on Italian film productions

At the latest Venice Film Festival, Nanni Moretti – invited to accept the award for the restoration of Ecce bombo – urged Italian producers to «be more reactive to the new, terrible cinema law». That same evening, director Maura Delpero, during her speech for the Grand Jury Prize awarded to her film Vermiglio, reminded the audience that «without public funds, this film would probably have had to betray itself». Among other things, for example, Vermiglio could not have been performed in dialect, «because dialect scares the box office a lot». «I say this because it’s important to continue fostering dialogue between those who make independent cinema and institutions,» Delpero added. The films at risk under the Ministry of Culture’s reform are precisely the smaller productions, which are often also the most ambitious and from which the newest and most interesting authors emerge. Delpero herself debuted with Maternal, a low-budget 2019 film: under today’s regulations, producing such a work might be very difficult, especially if it fails to convince the commission currently deciding who receives public funding. For instance, part of the funds allocated by the selective commission under the new law is reserved for works that – according to the Ministry of Culture – depict «characters, events, and places representative of national identity», in an attempt to «enhance, promote, and disseminate the Nation’s cultural identity». In the past, this specific type of story was not considered more deserving than others, and according to many, this approach epitomizes the nationalist policies of the current government, aimed at heavily influencing even the cultural domain.