On 11 May 2023, in the Aula Magna Guido Carli of the Luiss University in Rome, was held the conference “What future for live entertainment and cinema?” , curated and moderated by the Honourable Gabriella Carlucci.
During the meeting, which saw the participation of many organizations and institutions, spoke, in particular, Minister On. Gennaro Sangiuliano and the President of the Culture Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, Hon. Federico Mollicone, presenting some of the Government’s proposals for the sector.
The president of UNISCA participated, speaking on the subject of the Implementing Decrees of Law 106/2022, the so-called Code of Entertainment.
After presenting our Association, to frame the theme, Pontoriero recalled that “The world of creativity, arts and entertainment is like a huge iceberg, a mountain whose most see only the tip: the great festivals, the premieres at La Scala, Sanremo, the cinepanettoni, etc. But much of its immense vitality remains submerged. The operators of this sector, that is workers, companies and non-commercial entities, move mostly invisible, to constitute one of the leading sectors of Italian industry, third in employment, according to the research Creative Italy, unfortunately stopped in 2015 ”.
He then added that it is “fundamental to start the Observatory provided for by law 106, as a starting point to arrive at representing and defining correctly and completely the Sector of Creativity, Arts and Entertainment; Otherwise, any measure in this respect may only be one-sided if not unfair“. Taking up Senator Gallone’s previous speech, the Chairman drew attention to the need “include in the scope of creative activities all knowledge, the heritage of traditions of yesterday and national identity of today, as well as to extend its boundaries through the contamination of genres and forms that thanks to “human intelligences” will lead us to the Culture of Tomorrow“.
Pontoriero then highlighted that the second step, to achieve an effective reform, is “implement a system of simplifications, through a single digital window that reduces the heavy bureaucratic burden on all operators“.
The third step in the reform proposed by UNISCA is to reform the system of support and facilities for the sector: “In line with what was previously stated by Mr Mollicone, we believe that public funds should promote ideas and projects that act as a driving force for the Italian creative industry, In short, supporting creative people rather than funding the preservation of “walls” alone.
Pontoriero then identified as the fourth and last step the reform that concerns subjects and productive activities, because “only in a clear, complete, simple and profitable context, you can introduce right rules“. In this respect UNITE, together with the main entities representing the Agents (ARIACS) and the Artists (Assolirica) of the Lyric-Symphonic sector, has already produced the first proposal for an implementing decree, which was submitted to the conference proceedings. The chairman then stated that our Technical Working Groups are working on other areas, with particular focus on work issues, starting from the redefinition and recognition of different professions, also through the procedures introduced by Law 4/2013, of which UNISCA boasts within itself the main associations recognized by the MISE in connection with the Register of workers introduced by the Entertainment Code.
“Our proposal proposes the unification of the protections for the workers with discontinuous income of the Sector, regardless of the forms of classification. If the claimants and hired workers had the same tax, social security, welfare and welfare burdens in general it would put an end to contractual dumping that leads to a continuous recourse to contracts distorted by the nature of the situations. This unification, however, should result from some structural changes, such as the effective recognition of all activities carried out by professionals in the sector, not only those performing, but also teaching, creation, consulting, etc. In addition, the calculation of social security benefits should be based on income distributed over contractual periods rather than only on final production benefits.”
Not being able to enter in all the technical meanders of the proposed solutions, Pontoriero has referred to the documentation that will be delivered to the acts hoping for the opening in a short time by the institutions, of the meetings of the Permanent Table of law 106.
Our chairman concluded by launching “a major campaign on the Risk of Extinction of Culture at a global level but, in particular, of our priceless heritage of national identity, past, present and, above all, future; an initiative, which will be curated by our spokesperson Claudio Trotta, on important ethical issues of enormous and concrete impact on the Sector. To understand ourselves we talk about the use and abuse of Artificial Intelligence, the financialization of works and the “summation” of culture, etc. ; a campaign that we will launch in June and make available to all those who want to contribute because culture is a value of all, especially those who come after us”.
