On Friday, Italian Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano announced the government's plans to assist in the recovery of the Bel Paese's cinema industry.
Italy's cinemas were hard hit by the COVID pandemic, which caused a steep decline in national numbers of cinema goers.
“There’ll be a decree on tax credits for cinema that will try to give the industry a hand, above all Italian cinema, this is a decree for Italian films,” said the minister.
Sangiuliano defended a measure, recently passed after being set up by the previous government, that earmarks 10 million euro for cinema ticket discounts.
“It’s a measure set up by my predecessor, and if we hadn’t done it, we would have lost the funds.
“I think that with this discount we can incentivize people to return to the cinema, to appreciate the value of the big screen.”
Earlier this month, licensing and copy right office SIAE announced that the number of Italian cinema goers fell by 72 per cent between 2019 and 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Spending had suffered an even sharper decline, by 78 per cent, the agency said, although there have been signs of a timid recovery since the end of the most critical phase of the COVID emergency earlier this year.
If it is true that in the first six months of 2022, signs of recovery emerged, the figures of 2019 are still “far away,” SIAE said.
“The challenge is to seize the opportunities for change,” said SIAE President and legendary lyricist Mogol.
Director-General Gaetano Blandini called for “targeted aid” in order to lift the struggling sector out of the doldrums.
Italy's newly elected government will offer a cinema ticket subsidy of 3.4 euro per person via the government ID app called Spid.
Although the 10 million euro is more than other European governments (with the exception of France) have put forward to facilitate cinema recovery, Sangiuliano acknowledged that the initiative is still “a drop in the ocean to bring people back to auditoriums.”
The culture minister also noted, however, that great initiatives often start small.
