Scola, Tavernier, Loach and Costa Gavras join Cinecittà protests

Directors Bernardo Bertolucci, Ettore Scola and Ken Loach have joined protests over a restructuring plan for Rome’s Cinecittà, saying it will lead to the demise of cinema activities at the historic studios.

“Cinecittà is famous across the world as a centre of excellence in the creation of cinematic works,” the Italian directors association ANAC said in a letter addressed to Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano and Prime Minister Mario Monti asking them to intercede.

Signatories included Bertolucci, Scola and Loach as well other local filmmakers Gianni Amelio, Marco Bellocchio, Ugo Gregoretti, Citto Maselli, Franco Nero, Giuseppi Tornatore, Pasquale Scimeca and non-Italians Costantinos Costa Gavras, Vanessa Redgrave and Bertrand Tavernier.

“Alongside its studios and laboratories is the extraordinary professionalism of the master builders, sculptors, plaster craftsmen and set technicians, which has attracted some of the biggest European and transatlantic productions to Rome,” the letter continued.

“The restructuring plan envisages on the one hand, the dismantling of cinema activities on the site, and on the other, the construction of hotels and health clubs, setting in motion the concreting over and exploitation of the area, mooted by the big construction firms in the region for some time,” it added.

In a separate move, France’s Association of Authors, Directors and Producers (L’ARP) launched a pan-European petition in support of Cinecittà on Wednesday, describing the plans as “shameful”. Michel Hazanavicius, Claude Lelouch, Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache were among some first 20 filmmakers to sign. 

The ANAC statement followed a week-long occupation of Cinecittà by workers disgruntled over the restructuring plans for the studios of majority private owner Italian Entertainment Group (IEG), whose main shareholders are banker and industrialist Luigi Abete, leather goods tycoons Andrea and Diego Della Valle (owners of the Tod’s and Hogan brands), producer Aurelio De Laurentiis and the Haggiag family.

Trouble at the studios has been brewing for months but the decision to occupy the site was sparked by full-page advertisements in the Repubblica, Sole 24 Ore and Messaggero newspapers last week, detailing the reasons for the plan and accusing the unions of “short-sightedness”. Feelings are running so high that three employees have also gone on hunger strike.

The workers’ concerns revolve principally around a move to redeploy them in other activities and companies.

Under the plans, the workforce of the onsite post-production specialist Cinecittà Digital Factory would be contracted out to Hollywood-based Deluxe Entertainment Services Group on a three-year contract, and a number of in-house technicians would be transferred to the cinema equipment company Panalight.

Another 50 set builders would be redeployed on the construction of Cinecittà World, a new theme park dedicated to cinema due to be constructed on the site of the Cinecittà’s former rival Roma Studios, or Dinocittà, which was founded by the late Dino De Laurentiis in the 1960s and acquired by IEG in 2004.

The €500 million Cinecittà World project, inspired by the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park in Los Angeles, is due to start construction in 2013.

Celebrated production designer Dante Ferretti, who won the Best Achievement in Art Direction Oscar this year for Hugo, is working on the design alongside theme park art director Valerio Mazzoli, whose past credits include attractions at Disneyland Paris as well as Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.

The Cinecittà workers, many of who have worked at the studios for decades, argue their redeployment signals the end of film production at the site.

IEG counters that it wants to maintain and reinforce Cinecittà as “a major cinema hub” but that changes to its structure are essential to achieve this.

Situated on the southern outskirts of Rome, Cinecittà was created in 1937 by Benito Mussolini to promote Italian cinema and also produce propaganda films.

Over its 75-year history, some 3,000 films have been shot there ranging from Mervyn Loy’s Quo Vadis, Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, Carol Reed’s The Agony and the Ecstasy to, in more recent decades, Jonathan Mostow’s U-571 and Martin Scorsese’s The Gangs of New York.

The last big foreign production to shoot there was the BBC and HBO’s series Rome.