09/06/2005

Sometimes figures have their own logic, other times they can be quite surprising: who would have guessed that the most successful French movie in Italy from 2002 to 2004, Amelie [+see also:
trailer
film profile] would sell almost as many tickets as it did in France, while Respiro [+see also:
trailer
film profile], by Emanuele Crialese, was such a hit in France that it got three times as many admissions than in its own country (634,352 admissions in France, 197,916 in Italy)?

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However, not all figures are celebrated; they can in fact be rather disappointing, such those currently being discussed in Rome, at the French and Italian Film Forum: in 2002, French films represented 6.94% of the Italian market, and in 2004, they are down to 3.49%, despite the increasing number of French films distributed in Italy every year. As for Italian films in France, they don't seem to have recovered from the rough time they had during the 90's, with even less importance in the market last year (0.21%) than in 2002 (0.36%).

Apart from a few French films with big stars, who still manage to attract a wide public, French and Italian films are mainly arthouse films, recently challenged by many up-and-coming film Industries, from Asia among others.
On the positive side, the number of international co-productions has increased, and their impact on the market has raised accordingly. In Italy, the figure climbed up from 2% in 2002 to 7% in 2004.
Today's debate, organised by the Cinema section of the Italian Ministry of Culture, Cinecittà Holding, the AIP, Istituto Luce, Unifrance and the CNC, gathers together many producers, distributors, institutions and networks. All participants immediately got down to essentials: support for distribution, promotion, the evolution of production support funds, the legal context, the state of co-production, and the key-role of television in supporting films.

(Translated from Italian)