SUCCESSFULL SERIES

In the last six years, the Campania Region has invested € 55 million in cinema and audiovisuals, producing expenditure of €150 million in the territory. Maurizio Gemma, director of the Film Commission Regione Campania (FCRC) takes a look at the role of TV series

The Campania Region has provided resources for the audiovisual sector that amount to around € 55 million which, over the last six years, have been directed towards the development, production and promotion of audiovisual works, as well as exhibition, infrastructure equipment, training and promotion in the territory.

Part of this investment has been entrusted to the Film Commission Regione Campania as the subject implementing the realization of the Regional Audiovisuals District and the Digital and Animation Creative Pole (currently at the functional adaptation stage). as well as the territorial and movie tourism promotion actions and professional refresher training activities. The main part of the resources on which the audiovisual system in Campania is based have been made available to the sector.

“In less than six years, starting with the approval of the 2016 Regional Cinema Law, Campania has achieved a position of significance, both in terms of attractiveness and visibility, on the small and big screen, reaching an increasingly wider audience, even beyond the borders of Italy”, comments with satisfaction Maurizio Gemma, director of the Film Commission Regione Campania.

Moreover, this investment, which also involves targeted activities by the FCRC, clarifies Gemma, has resulted in “a consolidation of the fabric of the businesses in Campania that operate in production and in specialist services (animation, casting, transport, supplies and rentals, catering etc.), in addition to the further professional growth of the regional sector”.

Campania was one of the first Italian regions to introduce a section entirely dedicated to financing the development phase to its own annual regional fund, and one of the first to experiment the financing of the distribution and auto-distribution of audiovisual works.

The Region’s biggest investment was in the development, production and distribution of audiovisual works, in terms of the number of measures as well as the overall amount of the resources allocated. Almost 70% of the regional investment from 2017 to 2022 was destined for funds granting selective grant contributions to the production, promotion and exhibition sectors.

The funds of the annual Cinema Plan which, together with the Three-Year Program, represent the focal point of the system of regional incentives, have been joined by extraordinary funds including the one-off allocation in 2017 (€4 M) with resources from the POC 2014-2020 and the open call fund in 2019 € (3 M) with resources from the POR – FESR. With regard to the 2020-2021 Cinema Plan, a further €2 M has been assigned for the restoration of the categories subjected to restrictions during the Covid-19 emergency. The overall investment of these funds amounts to €36.2 M (of which €29.2 M allocated in the Cinema Plan alone).

The impact has been very positive: “a prudent estimate of the expenditure of audiovisual productions in the territory of Campania from 2017 to 2022 is almost €150M” specifies the director of the Film Commission Regione Campania.

The most significant increases were registered in medium-high budget productions, with television series having a driving effect, including many long-running ones (Gomorra, My Brilliant Friend, The bastards of Pizzofalcone, The Sea Beyond, Mina Settembre, Inspector Ricciardi).

As far as television series are concerned, in particular, the resources used were mainly destined for the purchase of user licenses for material based on the works and for territorial promotion actions through the Let’s Movie platform (https://letsmovie.fcrc.it) which, with the movie-tours supported by augmented reality and the gaming activities via the “Phlay” app, is getting very encouraging results in terms of the number of users as well as the amount of time spent on the platform.