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The winning Italian films at the last Venice Film Festival were all supported by the Lazio International Cinema Fund which means that the Fund has hit the bull’s eye and is working well from an artistic view- point as well”.
Luciano Sovena, president of the Roma Lazio Film Commission [RLFC], is satisfied with the excellent performances of “Hannah” by Andrea Pallaoro, the star of which, Charlotte Rampling, was awarded the Coppa Volpi and of “Nico, 1988” by Susanna Nicchiarelli, Best Film in the Orizzonti section.
This is confirmed by the numbers: in the year it was set up, 2015, Lazio Cinema International funded 17 international co-productions, more than half of which (30) were financed in the three year period 2013- 2015.

Whilst between 2015 and 2016 the Regional Audiovisual Fund financed 589 works, and 428 were granted a contribution in 2017.
Important figures for big investments. We should note that the Regione Lazio, with € 30 million, is the Italian region that commits the most resources to audiovisuals and, in Europe, it is second only to Berlin- Brandenburg.
We should also remember that Rome is very attractive to foreigners thanks to its natural and unique locations: many big international productions have recently chosen to come to the eternal city, from “Spectre” by Sam Mendes to “Zoolander 2” by Ben Stiller; Steven Spielberg will soon be coming to Lazio to film “The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara” whilst, curiously, two big cinema talents met in the city during the summer in order to recount the same Italian news story from the 1970s – the kidnapping of Paul Getty III: Ridley Scott with “All the Money in the World” and Danny Boyle with the TV series “Trust”.

Rome also has Cinecittà, which has now returned to public management and is in full relaunch mode.
“We are waiting to hold a meeting in order to develop a promotional policy that also includes the film studios”, reveals Sovena. But Lazio is not just Rome: “our policy”, underlines the president of the RLFC, “aims to extend knowledge of the territory to the province which contains a lot of natural and tourist locations that are unknown to many people”.
In fact, the Lazio Cinema International open call, aimed at incentivizing international productions and co-productions, rewards films that shoot “outside Rome” in the calculation of the score.  Exemplary, in this regard, is the Italian-Belgian co-production “Il primo re”, an important film in terms of the content (the origins of Rome) and the budget, that Matteo Rovere began filming at the beginning of September in Nettuno.
The set will move on to Manziana and Monteranno, in Upper Lazio, for a total duration of 8 weeks of lming. “Co-productions have increased exponentially and the region is being discovered; we should not forget that this is also very important for movie tourism” insists Sovena.

The international vocation of Lazio and its Film Commission extends to training proposals dedicated to young people in order to support their professional growth and offer them an opportunity to work in audiovisuals on an international level as well.

This is the case of Torno Subito, a Regione Lazio project for which the Film Commission handles the promotion of the Cinema line, the result of the collaboration with the Regione Lazio’s Education Department. Now in its third edition, the project allows students from the region to have an educational experience in the best international schools and to put into practice the skills they have learned during an internship in regional sector schools.

Positioned along the same route is Movieland, the competition created to highlight the positive characteristics of the Lazio region through web series pilots made by young Italian and foreign filmmakers.
The competition makes it possible to draw a new attention to the region with original ideas and is an occasion for identifying young talents that can be directed towards virtuous production processes.

This year, once again, the Roma Lazio Film Commission will present a € 3,000 award to the young Italian and foreign filmmakers who are able to best valorize the Lazio Region as part of the Vth edition of the Roma Web Fest.