The resignation of Italy’s culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano on Friday, after he admitted to having an extramarital affair with a ministry consultant, is prompting hope across the Italian industry that his departure could help remove legislative impediments that many claim are causing a production slowdown.
Sangiuliano stepped down Friday in the wake of a scandal that dominated Italian headlines for days and rocked Italy’s right-wing government headed by Giorgia Meloni. It involves Maria Rosaria Boccia, a self-proclaimed fashion entrepreneur who claimed on Instagram to have been hired as a ministry advisor. After Sangiuliano denied this, it surfaced that they had been having an affair.
Sangiuliano has been replaced as culture minister by Alesandro Giuli, head of Rome’s MAXXI museum of contemporary art and architecture. Giuli on Saturday made the trek to the Venice Film Festival to attend the closing ceremony, during which anger was vented against long-gestating legislation that Sangiuliano had been drafting. The new law would bring contentious modifications to the country’s crucial tax incentives for film and TV production, making it much harder for smaller indie producers to tap into the benefits.
During the ceremony, veteran auteur Nanni Moretti – who got a prize for the restored version of his first work “Ecce Bombo” that screened in the Venice Classics section – lashed out against Sangiuliano, urging Italian producers and directors to be more “reactive” against the country’s upcoming “terrible new film law.”
Moretti’s call was echoed by another prominent director, Gabriele Muccino, who is known stateside for scoring a Hollywood hit with Will Smith-starrer “The Pursuit of Happyness.” In an Instagram post that’s been widely picked up by Italian media, Muccino urged the new culture minister to “listen” to the Italian industry and to “give it back its strength and prestige” by modifying the “disastrous” law that Sangiuliano was drafting.
Thanks to its generous, smartly conceived tax rebates, “until a year ago, Italian cinema was experiencing a period of great prosperity,” said Muccino, noting that productions such as “The White Lotus” Season 2, Steven Zaillian’s “Ripley” and Amazon Prime’s “Those About to Die” came to Italy “creating jobs and economic growth.”
“Then Sangiuliano arrived and with him the specious, confusing, incomplete and much-quibbled-over new [proposed] law on tax rebates that [has] slowed down and blocked dozens of projects,” he said.
“Many productions have stopped, investors have fled to other European countries with more advantageous policies where the government knows how to protect this industry and, more importantly, they know that it represents an important part of the country’s entire economy,” he said, blaming Sangiuliano for his “senseless and short-sighted vision” that has brought Italy’s industry “to its knees.”
Hollywood is also concerned about the proposed new law which would exclude anything involving artificial intelligence from the Italian incentives, which means studios and streamers would not be able to use the rebate for various types of special effects. There are also concerns among foreign producers that the draft law jingoistically favors films that use local talents.
Before Sangiuliano resigned, the Italian parliament was expected to push through his new law regulating film and TV production rebates by Oct. 9. It will now be interesting to see whether Giuli, who has not commented on the legislation, pays heed and makes some changes.
(Pictured above, from left to right: Nanni Moretti, Gennaro Sangiuliano and Gabriele Muccino.)