The updated discipline of cinema and audiovisual (Law n.277/2016) introduced, inter alia, key points:
* Introduction by the "higher Cinema and Audiovisual Council" (Art. 11);
* Introduction of the Fund for the development of investments in cinema and audiovisual (Art.13);
* Increase in the tax credit rates (Articles 15-21), and in particular:
a) a tax credit for production companies, which provides an incentive of 15- 30% which varies according to the characteristics of the company and the work in favor of national cinematographic and audiovisual works;
b) a tax credit for distribution, which provides for a rate of 15-40% for the distribution of cinematographic and audiovisual works;
c) a tax credit for film business companies, which provides a 20-40% rate for investment in the creation of new theaters
cinemas, in the restructuring and digitization of existing theaters and cinemas and a rate of 20-30% for the technical and
post production;
d) a tax credit for the enhancement of the film offer by of theaters, with a 20% incentive for shops showing films and
Italian and European documentaries;
e) a tax credit for attracting investments to the national territory film and audiovisual international companies, with a 25-30% incentive in favor of Italian executive production and post-production companies, commissioned by foreign productions;
f) a tax credit of 30-40% for companies not belonging to the sector film and audiovisuals that bring money for the production of works cinematographic;
- Introduction of the measure of automatic contributions (Articles 23-25);
- Renewal of the measure of selective contributions through the introduction of a dedicated line the writing of screenplays reserved for authors and the reform of the lines reserved for companies, or to the development and pre-production, production, national distribution of cinematographic and audiovisual works (Art. 26);
- Contributions to the promotion of cinematographic and audiovisual language teaching e acquisition of analysis tools for the knowledge of image grammar, also in order to use the cinematographic work as an educational tool;
- Support to sector entities referred to in Art. 27, paragraph 3 of Law no. 220 of 2016, namely: the Istituto Luce Cinecitta, the "Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia" Foundation, the "La Biennale Venezia ", Cineteca di Bologna Foundation, Maria Adriana Prolo Foundation, Cineteca italiana Foundation (Milan) and of the Cineteca del Friuli ( Gemona in Friuli Region);
- Extraordinary measures for the strengthening of the circuit of cinemas and multifunctional (Art. 28);
- Extraordinary measures for the digitization of cinematographic and audiovisual works (Art. 29);
- Abolition of state censorship (Art.23).
The normative measure promoted:
- Selective contributions to the project: the law provided for a minimum share of contributions (from 15% to 18% of the fund), equal to 70 million euros, to support and incentivize first films, start-ups, arthouse films, youth initiatives, contributions for the "Venice Biennale", the "Istituto Luce Cinecitta" and the "Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia". Furthermore, the contributions were no longer be disbursed only on the basis of box office receipts, but the quality of the work, participation in international festivals and the awards achieved were also be taken into account.
- Increase in the Tax Credit: The tax credit rose to 30% for production, distribution, cinema, technical and post-production industries, promotion of Italian and European works in cinemas, attraction in Italy of investments and gaming companies. The credit goes up to 40% for independent producers who dealed with the distribution of the film themselves.
- Reopening of cinemas: 30 million euros for each of the years 2017, 2018 and 2019 were allocated to the granting of non-repayable grants or interest on mortgages or financial leases, for the reactivation of closed or abandoned cinemas; construction of new cinemas, including through the purchase of premises for cinemas and related services; the transformation of existing cinemas or multiplexes in the city with the aim of increasing the number of screens and restructuring and structural and technological adaptation of the rooms. 10 million a year for three years will finance the digitization process of filmic works.
Alongside the legislation that supports the creation, production and distribution of cinema and audiovisuals, MIBACT supports the promotion of numerous film festivals in the Italian context. Among which, there are:
- Animavi, International poetic animation film festival
- Bari International Film Festival (Bif & st)
- Bergamo Film Meeting
- Bobbio Film Festival
- Busto Arsizio Film Festival
- Cartoons on the Bay
- Ciak d'Oro
- Concorto Film Festival
- Shorts from Dreams
- David by Donatello
- Dieciminuti Film Festival
- Far East Film Festival
- Rome Film Festival
- Porretta Terme Film Festival
- Benevento BCT Film and Television Festival
- Documentary Festival of Abruzzo
- Castelli Romani International Film Festival
- Salerno International Film Festival
- Dolomitale Filmfestival
- Flaiano Award
- Giffoni Film Festival
- Queer Cinema Days
- Golden Globe
- La Spezia Film Festival
- Venice International Film Festival
- Pesaro International New Cinema Exhibition
- Milan Machinima Festival
- Milan Film Festival
- Militello Independent Film Fest
- Naples Film Festival
- Sicily Queer filmfest
- Turin Film Festival
- TRAme Indipendenti, Pisa
- Trieste Science + Fiction Festival
- The Village Doc Festival
- VideoFestival City of Imperia
- Visionary International Film Festival
- Youngabout
In 2019, the new Italian Museum of Audiovisual and Cinema ( MIAC https://www.museomiac.it/ ) was inaugurated: the first multimedia, interactive and immersive museum entirely dedicated to the cinema was financed by MIBACT, created by Istituto Luce-Cinecitta, in partnership with Rai Teche and Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna, Audiovisual Archive of the Labor and Democratic Movement (AAMOD), National Cinema Museum of Turin, Cineteca Italiana Fundation, Cineteca of Friuli, Mediaset and with the patronage of SIAE.
The law requires the MIBACT to prepare an annual report on the state of implementation of the interventions with reference to the economic, industrial and employment impact and the effectiveness of the tax concessions provided for therein.
The evaluation on the state of the measure approached at methodology which is based on a macro-micro model aimed at providing:
* the assessment of the overall impact of the law on the entire film industry and audiovisual (macro),
* the evaluation of the effectiveness of the individual support measures provided for by law (micro).
This dual evaluation model forms constitute a first basis which can and it will have to be further integrated and updated upon the actual implementation of the analysis impact. For the "macro" component, general sectorial indicators have been identified on the basis of research conducted in countries comparable to ours according to the approach that Olsberg SPI has used by for similar evaluations. For the "micro" component, specific indicators have been developed for each individual measure of support, based on the specific objective of the measure in question, of the principles set out in Article 3 and of the objectives referred to in Article 12 of the law. The micro-indicators were further classified as common, i.e. applicable to the assessment of all individual measures or specific,constructed and applied to each specific measure, its nature and its objectives.
The effort of Italian state to support the production of audiovisual local production is relevant and has increased over the last years, trying to cope with the decreasing resources from the market (cinemas, homevideo, etc.).
The approved "Discipline on cinema and audiovisual" entered in force and imposes higher quota of national/EU movies and audiovisual products on national TV programming schedule, asking also for programming slots more relevant, in order to avoid temptative to foolish the law, programming national/EU movies in impossible hours.
But the biggest effort has still to come, with the transposition into Italian legislation of two important EU directives, that will have a direct impact on cinema, audiovisual, advertising and publishing industry: revised AVMS Directive and revised copyright directive. In the first one the most important revolution is the introduced possibility for single EU states to impose a mandatory contribution from Internet Platforms to the funding of local productions and contents.
In the second one is the possibility, left to single states, to impose collective agreement between publishers and internet platforms to remunerate the newspapers and publishers when their contents are made available over the Internet. Italian authority for Communication (AGCOM) is closely monitoring the situation through its own observatory and regularly publishes reports on the evolution of situation. According to a Sportcal study published in 2019 in Italy there were already 8 million subscribers to streaming platform such Netflix, Amazon prime and DAZN. According to all sources these numbers have grown exponentially during the lockdown for movies and fiction platforms (Netflix, Amazon, plus the newly launched Disney). So the possibility to introduce mandatory contribution or to negotiate agreements for local investment by Netflix and other OTT in Italian creative contents, is producing high expectations that could probably produce an impact in the years to come for the world of Italian audiovisual production
(This forecast of PWC (elaborated in 2019, before the Pandemy) gives the relevant trends in the sector https://www.pwc.com/it/it/publications/entertainment-media-outlook/2019/...).