Abstract
The paper addresses the issue of public funding for the film and audiovisual industry in Italy. The purpose of the work is to identify, considering the recent reforms, the features of government intervention in these areas in order to understand how both the cultural and the economic component are supported in this distinctive sector, and the potential effectiveness of public subsidies as recently redesigned by legislators. To this end, the analysis is divided into four parts. The first provides an historic overview of the main public tools adopted, in the last century, for supporting private economic activities. The second offers a brief history of public financing for the film industry. The third consists of a detailed discussion of the recent reform in the public aid mechanisms for the movie and audiovisual industry. The conclusions provide answers to the research questions, seeking above all to understand whether it is now possible to go beyond mere economic efficiency in pursuit of a mature cultural policy in the film and audiovisual sector. The conclusions highlight how the film and audiovisual industries continue to be distinctive precisely because of their scope, including in terms of culture, and also underscores how recent reforms in the Italian law may open the way to a good balance between market demands and promotion of culture.