The big film and television production houses still choose Sicily. And they start a sort of auction to grab the (few) contributions that the Region has put on the table to finance filming on the island using Sicilian operators and actors.
As many as 73 production companies responded to the call published on March 22nd: 50 presented projects to make films and TV series, another 21 would like to shoot documentaries and the last two as many short films.
The Department of Tourism and Entertainment, led by the Melonian Elvira Amata, has just published the decree which formalizes the applications admitted to the subsequent evaluation phase. In practice, the real race for funding begins now. A second evaluation by the “Film Commission” will assign a score to each project and thus the 3 and a half million budget will be divided to assign the contributions that reduce the cost of the sets.
The most important project, at least from an investment point of view, is the one presented by “Bibi Film”, the Roman production company that filmed, for example, the series on the investigations of the commissioner Lolita Lo Bosco: It has production costs of 17 and a half million and has asked for a contribution of 500 thousand euros.
“Palomar” also asked for 500 thousand euros for the new season, the fourth, of Makari. And then “Italian International Film” asked for 400 thousand euros for the feature film “Love is good above everything”. “Terra de Punt” asked for 320 thousand euros for “Caravaggio a Siracusa”. “Movie 4.0” another 490 thousand euros for “Palermo Interno Notte”.
“Arbash” would like a contribution of 378 thousand euros for the “biopic Ninni Cassarà” and the boys of the lost steps. “Indiana Production” will shoot the film “I am the end of the world” in Sicily and has requested a regional contribution of 500 thousand euros. “Filmin Tuscany” will shoot “Limit” and has asked for half a million euros. And then there are “Showlab” which asked for 500 thousand euros for “Furia” and “Immagine Corporation Production” which for “Broken Dreams” would like help of 500 thousand euros.
