The clear rules to improve the regulation of time windows, the so-called windows between passage in the cinema and the subsequent streaming, including the hoped for equality between Italian films and foreign films, on which government action was expected, risk at this point to remain on the unanswered list after the fall of the Draghi executive.
It is rather difficult that rules such as those required by the cinema sector are put into ordinary administration despite the hopes sparked by the historic bipartisan agreement, voted by the Brothers of Italy at the Democratic Party, of last July 13 with the motion passed unanimously on the measures for help cinemas out of the crisis.
All agree to fix the window and the
equalization between Italian and foreign films regardless of whether they have received state funding as well as confirming the aid in tax credit for distribution.
The motion was precisely a recommendation of direction that would later have become a legislative act or decree.
The government implosion has stopped everything.
What will happen now?
It was discussed in Borgo Brufa (PG), as part of the Umbria Cinema Festival, at the first meeting of the Film Business Think Tank, wanted by Alberto Pasquale of the Umbria Film Commission, which promises to become an annual opportunity for discussion on business audiovisual and which will have its second appointment in the first months of 2023, again in Umbria.
The current situation is contradictory to say the least.
"There is a maximum occupation on the sets, with professional figures over which we fight,
there is an excess of production demand.
Will it be a bubble? ", Said Nicola Giuliano, Indigo Film producer. And at the same time there is an excessive production of cinema that has no market and that does not succeed in the cinema. Not to mention the abyss of receipts, minus 60 % that becomes less than 70% of Italian cinema (with no films in the top 15 of the season and only 7 that have exceeded 1 million). "While for seriality, which in my opinion is cinema squared, the selection of projects upstream and then under construction is very severe, the selection mechanisms have skipped over cinema "observed Riccardo Tozzi founder of Cattleya." It is no coincidence that the cinema viewer is fully satisfied with the seriality they see in streaming precisely because of the quality of the product ", he added. The theme of the windows,
in the opinion of the producers, it is not at all decisive for the crisis facing the cinemas, while it is the relationship with the public to be rebuilt with a cinema that attracts them and is an event, so interesting to be seen in the hall and also on the platform, whereas the so-called 'centrality of the room' is a rather romantic concept now.
"It is also our fault - said Marco Belardi of Lotus - if we fail to intercept the public and encourage new real talents".
Although at different times, Paolo Sorrentino's debut with Man in Plus grossed just 90 thousand euros, his producer Giuliano recalled, but this did not prevent the birth of a talent like that.
This is to say that "the hall, whether central or not, serves as a
industry (because it is a benchmark) and as an intangible value for authors and producers, the transition to cinema gives them a specific weight, I am thinking of a talent like Pierfrancesco Favino and his growth with cinema beyond the box office.
For this reason - said Giampaolo Letta of Medusa - should not be marginalized and certain rules on the windows are needed. "But there are those like Tozzi and Benedetto Habib of Indiana who think that film-by-film bargaining on a case-by-case basis is the most important thing. Approximately 240 theatrical films, and 40% state subsidy in the form of a tax incentive is one of the possible reasons for so much production in a purely automatic system that no longer works. There is a loose mesh system that would have need, underlined Letta, of a "reference system".
Production must be more authoritative, on seriality "there is a risk of homologation on the horizon, with a request for products from generalist TV", said Nicola Giuliano.
"Strengthening the union of producers by giving a strong voice to independent producers", concluded Benedetto Habib of Indiana, president of the ANICA producers section, "is the ground on which we are working", also to mend the rift (according to what learns back) with the four companies - Cattleya, Groelandia, Picomedia and Wildside - intending to leave Anica.