Foreword by Sandro Bondi

The European Cinema Yearbook, fruit of MEDIA Salles’ scrupulous work made possible by the support of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activites, is an essential tool for getting to know the cinema industry and the trend in cinema-going in the European Mediterranean context. Highly useful figures which are compared to those of important world markets and also make it possible to carry out a thorough analysis of the audiovisual scenario in our country, where signs of a renaissance in domestic productions, noticed in 2008 thanks to important films that have obtained important worldwide acknowledgement, are confirmed in several cases.

The European Cinema Yearbook also provides precious input at a crucial time in Italian legislation on the cinema, which has seen the introduction of tax relief measures recognised and pointed to as an example in Europe, and sees proposals for reform presented and now being debated in Parliament, which I trust will soon be fully implemented.The cinema and the cinema industry must, in fact, be increasingly freed from the channel of political decision, leaving it up to the market, thanks partly to the tax relief that has just come into force, to select the films that deserve financing and limiting public intervention to the selection of emerging talents by financing film débuts or second films as well as support for the leading national institutions in the world of the cinema.

These are all measures whose impact we shall be able to measure in a few years’ time, thanks also to tools such as the admirable European Cinema Yearbook, and which I expect to be significant.This is why I express my sincere appreciation of the work carried out so scrupulously and professionally by MEDIA Salles, the fruit of which can be seen in the following pages which, I am certain, will prove, as always, extremely useful to players in the world of the cinema.

Sandro Bondi
Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities