To mark Earth Day, and in keeping with the portal’s attentiveness to environmental issues, Italy for Movies debuted a new green filter tool in the “News” section to help search the reports monitoring productions shooting on location in Italy for the most recent information and updates on sustainable themes.
There are actually many, significant initiatives in place to make every stage of the audio-visual and film production process more careful of the environment.
In December 2020, the European Commission adopted a Media and Audio-visual Action Plan, to support post-Covid recovery and transformation within the media and AV sectors. The steps in the plan include ACTION 6: “Towards a climate-neutral audio-visual sector”. Across Europe, institutions are becoming spokespeople for a new way to approach AV production, an issue that found fertile ground in Italy where Selective contributions for production from the DGCA-Directorate General for Cinema and Audio-visual (Ministry of Culture) reward productions that obtain environmental sustainability certification based on bespoke protocols issued by the ministry of ecological transition and by other registered auditors.
Initiatives established in the regions are also significant and well supported by productions. It was recently announced that Dany Boon, director of French comedy Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (Welcome to the Sticks), will shoot his new film in the Maddalena islands of Sardinia. The film will be “green” in all phases of its development, an approach encouraged for years by the Sardegna Film Commission which awards sustainability points within its grant system. Brennero, the Cross Production-Rai series co-production, supported by the IDM Film Commission of South Tyrol, will follow the Commission’s new Green Shooting guidelines, certification obtained by the producers submitting a request for financing. The new production guide in Emilia-Romagna includes the role of Green manager to ensure the sustainability of productions.
Precursor to these initiatives was the Green Film Protocol introduced in 2017 by the Trentino Film Commission, outlining clear actions to make a set more sustainable and offering sustainability certification for productions committing to reducing their impact on the environment. Trentino Film Commission subsequently promoted and adapted the Green Film brand, recognised by Italian Film Commissions, building an international network and facilitating benchmarked sustainable behaviour among TV and film productions. A demonstration that shooting in Italy also respects the environment.