Sicilian cinemas are suffering, with a trend of attendance falling by 30 percent compared to 2019, the year before the pandemic. A spotlight was lit on the state of health of the structures intended for the big screen, which survived in the post-covid period thanks to ministerial and regional lines of intervention, at the second regional conference organized by Anec Sicily: Cinema, what future? Perspectives and proposals, which was held this morning at Palazzo dei Normanni with merchants, sector experts and institutional representatives. There were 6 million attendances in 2019, which dropped drastically in 2023 with just over 4 million spectators. “This number – explained the cinema entrepreneur and Anec Sicilia technical consultant, Rosario Drago – which according to the end of the year estimates would drop to 3 million, 50 percent less than in 2019. And if in that year there were 278 active theaters in Sicily, today there are 234. Forty-four no longer operational, therefore, some closed permanently, others transformed or closed temporarily due to lack of resources”. An example above all is the Cinema Centrale in Marsala, which definitively closed its doors and was sold to private individuals who transformed it into a car park. After the institutional greetings from Gaetano Galvagno, president of Ars Sicilia, Mario Lorini, national president of Anec, Francesco Giambrone, national president of Agis, Paolo Signorelli, national president of Anec Sicilia and Egidio Bernava Morante, regional president of Agis, various focuses on the cinema took place and Film Commission, with the proposal of regional reimbursement on tickets with the Sino operator Accursio Caracappa and Nicola Tarantino, director of Sicily Film Commission; on the relationship between cinema and disability and between cinema and school, with the various initiatives carried out in various areas of the island. “The objective – said Giuseppe Gambina, of the national Fice – is not to bring cinema to schools but schools to the cinema with new projects to be carried out in cinemas in networks with schools, AGIS, USR Sicilia and the Region in a synergistic manner. We also hope for the establishment of a technical committee made up of experts from the world of schools and cinema and representatives of institutions, which will allow the network to operate in a concrete manner. We also imagine – he concluded – extracurricular courses, differentiated by age as antidotes to boredom, loneliness, addiction to social media and smartphones”. This was followed by an in-depth analysis of the amendments in favor of cinemas in the regional budget with Andrea Peria Giaconia, president of Anec Palermo, who underlined the need to include, within the agenda of the regional government, a stable measure for cinema structures. “The long wave of the post-pandemic has meant that today cinemas are paying the price of the current economic crisis – said Peria Giaconia – which is why we ask the regional institutional leaders of the Schifani government to pay the utmost attention to our sector, activating a measure stable as of the next financial law: with a minimum economic effort the 127 Sicilian structures, cultural and economic centers of the island could be saved”. Finally, the topic of the proposal for a new financing line for cinemas and the transfer of tax credit and operating costs was addressed. In connection, at the end of the works, the regional councilor for Tourism, sport and entertainment Elvira Amata said: “The regional government has put the spotlight on the cinema sector, understood in all its segments, from productions to theatres. We have already spoken about it at the General States of Cinema, a meeting held last April in Ortigia, in which the various critical issues emerged, as well as the strengths. I believe that the discussion, like today’s, is a moment of growth for all the interlocutors: we will study, in synergy with the Department of Productive Activities, the actions to be implemented to give a breath of fresh air to this sector, which is very important for its effects on tourism and the economic development of the Island, because the world of cinemas should not be abandoned, rather it should be supported by bringing young people back to the cinema with the involvement of universities. Cinema must not only represent the past, but is present and future. It would be interesting – she concluded – to create an observatory that constantly monitors the performance of cinemas to prevent all critical issues so as to address them in time”.
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