The Lazio Region, with €10m available for investment in international co-productions, has established itself as the second in Europe, right beneath Berlin-Brandenburg.

In the last year, co-productions have increased significantly with the support of the Roma Lazio Film Commission, presided over by Luciano Sovena. Beyond the 10m euros available for international co-productions, the regional cinema fund will also receive an extra 9m euros. As Cristina Priarone, General Manager at the Roma Lazio FC and VP of the Italian Film Commission declared, thanks to Istituto Luce Cinecittà the region’s Film Commission will share a stand at Cannes next to other Italian Film Commissions. Roma Lazio Film Commission is currently organizing the ‘Co-production Balkan Days’ project, as part of the European Year of Cultural Heritage.

Among the films in competition in Cannes, Matteo Garrone’s Dogman and Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro have been supported by the Lazio Region with more than one million euros. The region is also cooperating on an increasing amount of international projects and it provides assistance to productions like Evgeny Afineevsky’s documentary Pope Francis docet or other TV formats like CNN’s Business Traveller and Top Chef, produced by Magnolia.

Still, the Film Commission’s top priority continues to be the promotion of the Lazio region, with their support to Raffaello Fusara’s Luce a Cavallo or the photography of The Name of the Rose, a TV series adaptation of Umberto Eco’s novel by Giacomo Battiato, starring John Turturro and Rupert Everett.