Italy's Cinecittà Studios to open four stages as international shoots return

Italy’s Cinecittà Studios is on track to open four new stages by the end of May, bringing its production footprint up to 25 stages, according to Cinecittà president Antonio Saccone.

A former Italian senator, Saccone was appointed president of Cinecittà last year, overseeing the state-owned company that runs the legendary Rome studios. Cinecittà also runs the renowned Luce Archive and is responsible for promoting Italian cinema abroad through promotional division Film Italia. In total, Cinecittà is home to 350 staff.

The film studio division is headed by CEO Manuela Cacciamani, who last May outlined an ambitious five-year business plan that included a doubling of annual revenues to €51.9m by 2029.

In December, Cinecittà officially opened Teatro 22 (T22), its largest soundstage and one of the biggest in Europe.

The new T22 is larger than Cinecittà’s famed Teatro 5, the vast studio where Fellini filmed La Dolce Vita, and is currently home to Mel Gibson’s The Resurrection Of The Christ.

The four additional studios are set to open in May, ahead of a planned July schedule.

The new studios have been financed with the help of €232m from Italy’s PNRR (Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza), a plan that uses EU money to invest in infrastructure and to boost the post-Covid economy. It has also helped refurbish another four Cinecittà stages, including the virtual production-focused Teatro 18, and in total will increase the facility’s production capacity by 60%.

The expansion will bring total soundstage space to 21,000 square meters with a 10-hectare backlot, making Cinecittà one of Europe’s largest production facilities.

The PNRR money is also being spent on training, with a focus on areas such as set and costume design, as well as digital skills.

Saccone says the studios are currently booked up for the first six months of this year, including with one unnamed series that is occupying eight studios. Recent productions to film at Cinecittà include Ridley Scott’s upcoming post-apocalyptic thriller The Dog Stars and the audio post-production on the second series of Tim Burton’s Wednesday.

Saccone said ‘certainty’ about Italy’s 40% tax credit for international productions was helping to attract productions. “As long as there is certainty about the tax credits, producers and productions tend to arrive, and right now there is certainty…when the law is not clear, all the production goes away.”

Also helping to attract productions, Saccone said, is Italy’s skilled workforce and its locations.

The majority of the Cinecittà’s bookings are from international productions, added Saccone. The Resurrection Of The Christ is employing some 500 people, the majority of them Italian.

International productions began returning last year when stricter rules for accessing Italy’s 40% tax credit were clarified by the government following allegations of misuse by Italian producers.

It marks a turnaround for Cinecittà which had four difficult years in the wake of disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the US actors and writers strikes and the fires in Los Angeles.

Saccone was in London last week to support the Cinecittà-backed Cinema Made in Italy, a showcase at the BFI Southbank of 10 recent Italian films, including Damiano Michieletto’s Primavera, Ludovica Rampoldi’s A Brief Affair and Nicolangelo Gelormini’s Gioia.

The event also sees sales agents for Italian films meet up with UK buyers. Two of the Cinema Made in Italy films have UK distributors attached, with Curzon Film on board for Primavera and Bulldog releasing Francesco Sossai’s The Last One For The Road. The hope is that several films screened will pick up UK distribution on the back of the event.

“This type of initiative is crucial – it is important to build bridges across cultures,” said Saccone.