The Arts - Rome - page 707

Cinema & Television
Cinema
Since its inception in 2006, Rome's film festival has established itself on the European cir-
cuit, attracting Hollywood hotshots and hordes of paparazzi to the Auditorium Parco della
Musica. However, controversy has rarely been far away, and in 2010 screenwriters and dir-
ectors took to the red carpet to protest against government spending cuts. The Italian gov-
ernment is one of the major financiers of Italian cinema and over the past few years it has
been systematically slashing investment leading to fears of future job losses.
Cannes & Cinecittà
Italian film-makers have long had a good relationship with Cannes and 2008 was a recent
highpoint. Matteo Garrone, a talented Roman director, took the Grand Prix for Gomorra
(Gomorrah), a hard-hitting exposé of the Neapolitan mafia, and Paolo Sorrentino scooped
the Special Jury Prize for Il Divo, an ice-cold portrayal of Giulio Andreotti, Italy's most
famous postwar politician.
The early noughties also witnessed a renewal of interest in Rome's film-making facilit-
ies. Private investment in Cinecittà lured a number of big-name directors to Rome's le-
gendary studios, including Ron Howard for his 2009 thriller Angels and Demons , Mel Gib-
son for The Passion of the Christ (2004), and Martin Scorsese, who had 19th-century New
York recreated for his 2002 epic Gangs of New York .
But competition from cheaper East European countries and a fall in domestic output - in
2011 only eight Italian films and six TV series were made at Cinecittà - have led to a seri-
ous decline in the studios' fortunes. To stop the rot the studio management is pinning its
hopes on plans for a €500 million movie theme park and a glitzy on-site hotel complex.
Predictably, though, these have been roundly criticised by studio employees who regard
them as the opening gambit in a long-term project to do away with Cinecittà's movie-mak-
ing facilities and focus on the 40-hectare site's real estate potential.
Cinecittà celebrated its 75th birthday in 2012. Inaugurated in 1937, the studios were originally intended to
produce propaganda films for Mussolini. However, their golden age came in the 1950s and 1960s when
Ben-Hur and Cleopatra were filmed there alongside Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita and many other big-
budget blockbusters.