The head of Rai Cinema has sounded the alarm on a struggling local box office, influx of movies since the pandemic and inflation in the market.
Paolo Del Brocco told the AVPSummit “there is a lot of product” in Italy at present but a plethora of issues require a “solution.”
He called on the whole industry – “agents, crew members, regulators” – to come together and discuss how to resolve the issues, as “it would be wonderful to have the answer straight away but unfortunately we don’t have it.”
Del Brocco said problems are three-fold. First, he focused on “box office suffering because of a loss of great American films this summer,” a situation that Deadline has highlighted in its box office coverage over the past few weeks. “Is this decrease permanent or is it a result of something that is related to the U.S., which used to be the main driver of audiences to theaters?,” queried Del Brocco.
He also pointed to market inflation due to “huge investments” by streaming platforms, while at the same time there has been an influx of local pics since the pandemic. “There are too many movies compared to pre-pandemic times,” added Del Brocco. “We need to go back to pre-pandemic figures [of movies], which could be absorbed by the pre-pandemic market.”
These new movies, however, are not necessarily being given long windows in theaters, or any window at all, added Del Brocco, meaning that “a piece of the industry is missing.”
“We no longer have widespread dissemination of our cinema,” he added. “In a free market this would be useful because it would give visibility to small and medium-sized movies.”
Del Brocco was speaking at the AVPSummit after an Italian culture minister confirmed plans for a new film and TV tax credit had been submitted.
Yesterday, the likes of Sony’s Wayne Garvie and DeVon Franklin addressed the south Italy confab.
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