The creation of a new Agency for managing the promotion of Italian movies abroad, the solution announced by Minister Bondi at Cannes and confirmed in Venice, is getting closer.
After the BoD of Filmitalia was dissolved, following its merger with Cinecittà Holding as part of a more general process of rationalization of the activities of the public Group carried out by Gaetano Blandini, the announced technical committee “” the advisory body of Cinecittà Holding “” was set up mid-January and will be giving its opinion on the promotional plan drawn up by the Holding.
As clarified in a note by the Sole Director of Cinecittà and the Director General for Cinema at the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities (MiBAC), Blandini, this was a necessary premise in order to achieve the Italian movie industry’s objective of setting up a foundation modeled on Unifrance.
The newly created committee will be led by Alessandro Battisti, the president of Cinecittà Holding, who has been charged with coordinating the work of the group which brings together representatives from the whole production chain (Anica and Api have been mentioned so far), film-makers (Anac, Centoautori), the regional Film Commissions and the three Ministries involved (Cultural Heritage, Foreign Affairs, Economic Development).
“The future structure will be a mixed public-private body”, says Battisti, “in which the various subjects involved in foreign promotion will work together in synergy”.
One important new feature is the “opening up to the television sector by involving drama industry players, one of the technical committee’s objectives”.
The new body will be able to count on a budget that “based on an indicative assessment, will be around double the resources available to the former Filmitalia which amounted to 2½ million Euros, as it will include the contributions to promotion received from the individual trade associations”, explains Alessandro Battisti.
“Filmitalia, which did a lot of good work, suffered from a lack of resources and an overlapping with other subjects involved in overseas promotion.
The best course is for contributions to be made by all the various protagonists working within a common strategy”.
And as Berlin draws nearer, the technical committee will be meeting in Rome for the first time to discuss the its future interventions.