Established seven years ago, Friuli Venezia Giulia pioneered Regional Funds for Cinema in Italy, investing very early on in the theatrical potential of its own region and becoming an example for others.
“We were the first to experiment with a Fund in Italy”, points out Federico Poillucci, president of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Commission, “so the only precedents we had were international ones. In order to set up our Film Fund, we looked at the French model which “” with its regional and municipal Funds “” we felt was the system closest and most easily applicable to our own, as we were too far removed from the type of funding provided by the federalist German system.
The most difficult part was to make local government understand that the money allocated was being invested, particularly at the beginning, when it was still not clear that there could be an automatic return of 1 to 8.
Over the last few years, however, the situation has changed radically and national cutbacks have led to the configuration of a new territorial offer”.
The remaining 15% went to international projects, mainly of Austrian, German and Slovenian origin, territories that, due to their geographical proximity, consider us to be their natural access to the sea”.
From 2007, the Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Commission has had a new Fondo Regionale per l’Audiovisivo “” Regional Fund for Audiovisuals
The Fund was created in order to develop local audiovisual production companies and contribute to the qualification of professional resources in the territory.
“We felt that a Fund dedicated to training, development and distribution”, concludes Poillucci, “would complete our intervention.
And I would say that it has been a pivotal initiative because the production segment was not very well developed in our Region and there were various film-makers, particularly in the documentary field, who needed a boost in this direction”.