Italy is to cut the €800m of funding it currently earmarks for film production per year, according to Italian minister of culture Italian Gennaro Sangiuliano.
The move comes at a time when Italy is producing a high number of Italian and international films. However, Italian films are continuing to underperform at the box office compared to the pre-pandemic era.
“It’s time to intervene,” Sangiuliano said, noting that state funding for film soared from €400m in 2019 to €800m in 2022 according to data from the Investments in Cinema and Audiovisual Development Fund. Italy’s 40% tax credits have accounted for 72% of the total spend so far in 2023.
“Film production is very close both to my heart and more in general to that of the government,” Sangiuliano said. “However, with all ministers being rightly asked to introduce budget cuts, if you realise there is waste and that a monster has been created that has ballooned from €400m to €800m in a few years you clearly ask to shift this funding elsewhere.”
Both medium- and high-budget Italian titles continue to underperform in cinemas, on average grossing well below the pre-pandemic releases.
Over the weekend the minister was cited by local newswires as highlighting “suspicious” situations including “films that receive millions and millions of public subsidies and are seen by very few people.”
In an Ansa report, Sangiuliano was quoted as saying the government planned “a small cut, to change the spending mechanism and make it more efficient.”
Sangiuliano highlighted that twenty films were recently produced with €11.5m of state funds, but only went on to make about €2,000 each in box office as fewer than 1,000 people went to see them, according to a report in Il Sole 24 Ore, Italy’s leading financial newspaper.
In July, deputy culture minister Lucia Borgonzoni told Screen that the government was working on reforms to its tax credit for film and TV series. She said Italy was not looking to amend the headline 40% rate on offer to productions but wanted to “raise the quality level” of projects securing the credit.
She said that last year between 800-900 productions were supported by the tax credit.
Italy’s 40% tax credit has proved a big draw for international shoots, this year including films such as Edward Berger’s Conclave and Roland Emmerich’s gladiator series Those About To Die. Recent high-profile Italian film titles include Edoardo De Angelis’s big-budget Venice opener Comandante, revenge tale Adagio by Stefano Sollima and Saverio Costanzo’s Finally Dawn.
Figures published earlier this month showed that spending on Italian audiovisual production jumped 20% to €1.8bn in 2022.
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