Italy winning race for Hollywood shoots

Craig and Forster join an illustrious list of international talent on location in Italy this year. Spike Lee shot the $45m Second World War drama Miracle At St Anna in the region.

Starring Derek Luke and John Turturro, it tells the true story of a group of black soldiers trapped in Tuscany, and was a co-production between Lee's 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks and Luigi Musini and Roberto Cicutto's Italian outfit, On My Own Productions.

Lee was keen to shoot at the authentic Tuscan locations, including the Serchio river and the village of St Anna di Stazzema. 'When you shoot in the location where something happened, it gives you something back,' he says.

Lee's name helped to secure shooting permits from the Tuscan authorities. 'Without him, it would have been tough,' admits executive producer Marco Valerio Pugini of facilities outfit Panorama Films.

Local co-operation like this is essential when luring international projects, since Italy lacks incentives for foreign producers. The weak dollar and strong euro exchange rate also worked against the St Anna project. 'We lost about $1m,' estimates Cicutto, of the cost of shooting in Italy. Despite this, Lee and the producers say they never considered cheaper Eastern European locations.

Meanwhile, in the north of the country, Michael Winterbottom's drama Genova shot on location in the city of Genoa and wrapped late last year. It tells the story of an Englishman, played by Colin Firth, who takes his daughters to Italy after the death of their mother.

And looking ahead, Turin is gearing up to host the US-financed English-language slasher film Giallo, directed by veteran Italian director Dario Argento. The film's producer, Rafael Primorac, insists they did not consider shooting anywhere else, although he too concedes 'it's probably cheaper to shoot on Rodeo Drive (in Beverly Hills)'.

To the south, Sicily's varied landscapes drew Wim Wenders last October for his drama The Palermo Shooting, starring Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Dennis Hopper, while Rome is set to host Walt Disney romance When In Rome, starring Kristen Bell, in June for about a week.

'Rome has some great things to recommend it,' says Ezra Swerdlow, the executive producer of When In Rome, on completing his scouting visit to the Eternal City. 'There is no way to cheat Rome - it is a unique-looking place. It's cheaper to shoot in New York, but you don't have to invent the wheel in Rome. You don't have to bring 60 people over; this is a big advantage.'

Sony Pictures Entertainment's Angels And Demons, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks, is also set to shoot in Rome in June.

Location-only shoots

What is significant about all these productions is that, with the exception of Miracle At St Anna (which shot for three weeks at Cinecitta in November), no project has booked any studio time in Italy. As the country's leading film studio, Cinecitta - which offers 22 stages, a 25-acre backlot and a large tank, and has catered for films including Gangs Of New York and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou - has been particularly affected. Cinecitta's deputy general manager Maurizio Sperandini describes the situation as 'dramatic'.

'The effect of locations-only shoots is that overall production days in our country are reduced,' he says. 'They come to shoot the minimum they need and leave.'

Last year, Roman Polanski's $135m Pompeii reportedly chose Spain's City of Light Studios over Cinecitta. But Sperandini insists Cinecitta is still being considered, stating that while Valencia offered incentives, the Spanish region did not offset the cost of importing labour. The production is on hold.

As for Angels And Demons, Sperandini says the production has no plans to shoot at Cinecitta. But 'change is on the horizon', he adds, referring to Italy's first tax incentive for the production sector passed by the Italian parliament in December and now pending European Union approval.

Gian Marco Committeri, a tax consultant for Anica, the Italian producers' organisation, called it 'a very big victory' for the sector.

If approved in its present form, a foreign producer would be able to obtain a reduction in costs by working through a local executive producer who would receive 25% tax credit on services - for up to $7.8m (EUR5m) per film - allowing them to reduce production costs on the front end.

Italy's executive production community is scrambling to identify a body strong enough to act as guarantor for major productions. The signs point to Cinecitta stepping in as a production service company.

Swerdlow says: 'A tax-system credit would be valuable in Rome because other countries are offering financial incentives. If that happens in Rome, that would do a lot to open interest from the American side.'

Meanwhile, a further source of financing will be made available to foreign productions in the spring. The $38.8m (EUR25m) film fund jointly offered by the Turin Piedmont film commission and US production company Endgame Entertainment will be offered to projects in the $5m-$25m range. Stefano Della Casa, president of the commission, says the fund will provide the final 25% of a budget on commercial English-language projects with 75% of their financing already in place.