The European Investment Bank (EIB) has made its biggest investment into European film production by granting a Euros 100m credit line to the Italian film and theatre industry.

The investment, which comes under the Audiovisual Innovation 2000 Initiative (i2i), will be managed by the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL)'s film and theatre credit department, under the direction of Romano Franza.

Funds will be available to finance up to 50% of the cost of a project, from a minimum of Euros 40,000 to a maximum of Euros 12.5m.

For Italian film producers, the Luxembourg-based EIB funds will represent a way of bankrolling an industry which has recently suffered from a virtual freeze in pay-TV investment, a drop in free-TV acquisitions, and a temporary cut in state funds allocated for film.

In an interview with official local trade Il Giornale dello Spettacolo, Franza said the EIB funds would provide Italian producers with "a further form of funding, and will not be an alternative to state funds."

Investment is targeted in particular at film production, film exhibition, technical services including film studios and labs, as well as the still drastically underfunded theatre industry.

The EIB has already approved funding for several projects, including the construction of a cinema in Sardinia, in a town which currently doesn't have any cinemas.