LEGGI IN ITALIANO “Film Commissions are back in control of the future”, Cinema & Video International announced a few months ago. Now it’s official: Federico Poillucci, who has headed the Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Commission for many years (since it was set up in 2000), can now work with greater serenity.
His summer has been taken up with location hunting for the new movie that Gabriele Salvatores will be filming in Trieste for 12 weeks, from September 9th. The movie is “The Invisible Boy”, a fantasy with a top secret plot, starring Valeria Golino, Ksenia Rappaport and, in the lead- ing role, a young budding actor selected by the local casting agency, Antonella Perrucci’s Galaxia.
This is the second time that Salvatores has made a movie in the region (the first was “As God Commands”). It will be produced by Indigo Film and supported by a 150,000 Euro contribution from the FVG Film Fund.
A year after the trouble caused by the Bellocchio affair, the scenariohas changed completely. What have been the effects, Cinema & Video International asks Federico Poillucci?
“A huge amount of satisfaction, as well as a great sense of responsibility. If, as announced, the resources destined for the Film Fund are suitably reinstated, we will have to pull our sleeves up: the damage, in terms of both economics and credibility, caused to the FVG cinema sector in the last year and a half will not be repaired immediately. We have to let the world know once again that this is not a region of censorship, of political retaliation that endangers investment and employment, the region of a City Councilor who plays conjuring tricks with funding that has already been allocated, of a City Councilor who, on a whim, suddenly closes down an excellent national organization like the Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Commission. No, we need to let everyone know that we are, once again, the region that has been a model for Italy in terms of the services it offers and its policies in support of audiovisuals.
What do you expect to happen now?
“We hope to be able to work with long term guarantees, with Film Fund resources that are adequate, assured and programmable. We are already adapting the Film Fund regulations, increasing the contribution limits but also offering more terms for beneficiary companies, especially with regard to the FVG effect, expenditure in the region and the employment of local staff.
A few months ago Giuseppe Tornatore said in an interview that “there is nowhere else in the world like Trieste in terms of the services and hospitality awarded to cinema”. Now we see the “return” of another Oscar winner, Gabriele Salvatores. Not a bad “re-launch”.
“Gabriele Salvatores’ The Invisible Boy is an ideal project for re- launching “FVG locations” in great style. But I would like to say that, although we are aware of the importance of high budget movies for the economy of a film commission and its region, we are even more gratified by the presence, at Venice, in the prestigious showcase of the Film Critics’ Week, of “Zoran, my nephew the idiot” by Matteo Oleotto, a movie that was entirely “made in FVG”. We were the first to believe in this movie, along with the FVG Development Fund, and seeing it achieve such incredible results fills us with pride. The growth of local talents and businesses will continue to be one of our main objectives in the years to come.
“Even back in 2008, with As God Commands, I realized that the FVG Film Commission is not just a structure that provides services, however precious they may be, or even just a distributor of funding. I can now confirm with certainty that, thanks to the passion
and expertise of its representatives, the Film Commission has become a very important element in the making of my movies. Without someone who knows the region (and I am not just talking about location-hunting, but also business relations , experience, bureaucracy) and, at the same time, understands the world of movies, everything would be much more complicated.
I have known Trieste for a long time and always found it to be intriguing. However, 5 years ago, in a pause during the filming of As God Commands, I discovered that treasure of architecture and imagination which is Porto Vecchio, the port of the Austro- Hungarian empire, and fell in love with it. I immediately remembered it when we were looking for locations for The Invisible Boy. Trieste is a city with many faces, distinctly graphic, a city that hides and reveals itself in every corner, every building. A city that is at times “invisible” for my Invisible Boy”.
Gabriele Salvatores for Cinema & Video International
