By Dom Serafini
Film commissions are recognized by cities, regions, and nations worldwide as a tool to promote business and employment in their territories, as well as gain international visibility for tourism. The need to leverage the audiovisual industry to achieve those goals is understood by each of the thousands of these government entities that exist all over the world… with the exception of Abruzzo, a region in central Italy. This region has often been likened to California, with its tall mountains, ample beaches, and vast natural parks. It even has bears and eagles just like its U.S. counterpart. In addition, Abruzzo is where relatives of Hollywood stars like Madonna, Alan Alda, and Michael Bublé originated from. Plus, Abruzzo is the region where parents of icons like Dean Martin, Henry Mancini, Perry Como, and Penny Marshall, among many others, came from.
Abruzzo also has the distinction of being the only remaining Italian region without a film commission. Over the course of the past 20 years, many regional administrations (from every political denomination) have promised the creation of an Abruzzo Film Commission, but none have ever fulfilled that promise.
Last Wednesday in L’Aquila (Abruzzo’s capital city), the current center-right administration staged a press conference titled “Toward the Birth of a Foundation” that should finally facilitate the creation of an Abruzzo Film Commission.
Despite the presence of regional authorities (like the region’s governor Marco Marsilio, pictured above at the podium), national figures (like Cristina Priarone, president of the Italian Film Commissions association), and popular movie stars (like Luca Barbareschi), the end result is that before anything gets done it will be necessary to form a board of directors, and then issue a call for the search of an executive. Naturally, there will be other probable delays before the commission’s headquarters are chosen in the mountain city of L’Aquila. Plus, the role of the competing coastal city of Pescara has yet to be determined.
One clue that the presentation might have actually been an election’s first salvo (since the next regional elections are coming up in 2024) was the absence of national and international trade press (this reporter was invited as a contributor to an Italian daily). It seemed to have been staged for the benefit of only the vast local press, making it more of a political than an industry event.
On top of that, Governor Marsilio anticipated that the money available to do this will be minimal, starting with two million euro (U.S.$2.5 million). He also said that in the past there were no funds available for such a task, indicating that promotion in Abruzzo is viewed as an expenditure rather than an investment.
The president of the Italian Film Commissions association, Cristina Priarone, urged local administrators to start the Abruzzo Film Commission as soon as possible at any cost, and offered up the Lazio Film Commission as a prime example since it began without funds and yet still became a successful entity.
While politicians continue to use an Abruzzo Film Commission as political bait, the international AV sector continued on its own, without any official support, to shoot films in Abruzzo. Among these, we can recall George Clooney’s The American, and, more recently the All3Media-distributed The Gymnasts.
Reportedly, since producers cannot depend on an official organization, some of them take advantage of Abruzzo’s natural settings, but after shooting, their crews travel to the nearby Lazio region (for lodging and catering) so that they don’t lose the incentives that the Lazio film commission offers (upon showing local receipts).
The popularity of the Abruzzo region within the international AV sector was apparent in 2019 when a delegation of Abruzzo’s regional government attended the American Film Market in Santa Monica, California to promote filming in the region and the entertaining presentation was a standing room only success. Unfortunately, immediately after the delegation returned to Abruzzo, the whole project fell out of political favor.
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