Culture councillors: 'sector is suffering, urgent need to plan reopenings'

The permanent coordination of the culture aldermen of Italy’s twelve major cities (Rome, Milan, Naples, Turin, Genoa, Palermo, Bologna, Florence, Bari, Venice, Cagliari, and Ancona) is back in the news after launching concrete proposals for a shared restart last February. The culture titulars of the 12 cities are concerned about the continuing pandemic and the suffering of the entire sector, while declaring themselves largely satisfied with the restart measures contained in the document that Culture Minister Dario Franceschini submitted to the Technical Scientific Committee. What the aldermen hope for is a restart with firm dates and clear rules, pending a discussion with the Conference of Regions and newly elected President Massimiliano Fedriga on reopenings.

“The cultural and entertainment sector,” the councilors said, “has been suffering for over a year and has never really restarted. Now that the reopening of various activities is being planned, it is urgent that certain dates and rules be provided as soon as possible for museums, theaters, cinemas and other live performances as well. Workers are in deep distress and exhibitors cannot do event planning without the necessary advance notice. We risk restarting with too many empty theaters and an audience unaccustomed to the richness and cultural heterogeneity that characterized our cities before the pandemic.”

“A direct dialogue between the Conference of Regions and the cities, together with the professional organizations, is imperative in this delicate phase of planning the conditions for the restart,” the councilors declare. “A balanced and effective restart must take into account the needs of territories and operators. As a coordination of the assessors, in order to foster dialogue, we will ask for a meeting as soon as possible with the President of the Conference of Regions Fedriga together with the professional organizations to initiate an open and constructive discussion that takes into account the experience gained in the last year and the indispensable conditions for the restart of the cultural life of our country. We are confident that we can reach a lasting and satisfactory collaboration as we have already done with Minister Dario Franceschini with whom we have activated a permanent table at the Ministry of Culture.”

The meeting with the councilors to define what to do was also attended by representatives of the culture and entertainment categories: Carlo Fontana, president Agis; Filippo Fonsatti, president Federvivo; Francesco Giambrone, president Anfols; Mario Lorini, president Anec; Antonio Buccioni, president Fisp; Domenico Barbuto, executive director Agis; and Simone Gialdini, general director Anec. The Agis representatives appreciated the significant convergence of positions with the councillors, reiterating how a full sharing between institutions and categories is necessary on the forms, methods and strategies for the restart. They reiterated, finally, the positions already expressed regarding the need to ensure reopenings as uniform as possible throughout the territory, confirming the full security of performance venues, already experienced last year, without the need for further aggravations.

Culture councillors: 'sector is suffering, urgent need to plan reopenings'

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