Location in Sicily: promoting territorial identity and urban development

Representing local realities in cinematographic and Tv productions finds its natural development in the diffusion and increasing of fictions, according with the liberalization of the Tv sector occurred in the 1980 in Europe and the consequent establishment of an international market. Without underestimating political and operative difficulties, it seems that the definition of a local system of cinematographic offer must be considered an instrument of election for preserving and promoting identities and specificities, also allowing the strengthening of entrepreneurial activities on the territory. The exploitation of locations offers an important occasion for relaunching and strategic repositioning of image as well as the related media relevance, also representing a potential resource for the hosting territory in economic, occupational, tourist and socio-cultural terms. Nowadays locations are becoming tourist destinations, offering relations such as products, services, natural and manmade elements, able to attract a certain number of visitors, satisfying expectations from a functional point of view as well as from an emotional one. Movie tourism represent a trend developed in the last years according with the creation of tourist agencies, specialised in guided tour to specific destination in which famous cinematographic scenes have been made. According to various statistics on cinetourism it was shown that, even if representing a recent phenomenon, it is a growing trend in the world tourism market, also attracting the attention of media, sociologist and tourism field operator. In the meantime film commissions and private interventions are significantly increasing in order to attract the largest number of cinematographic productions; consultation, competences, location’ facilities, and specialised logistic support are placed at disposal. In every location are working many trades of regional and local “Film Commissions”, conscious that a strong awareness of the location and an adequate supporting organization to cinematographic productions means a resource for the exportability of the local product. Sicily has always been an artists’ object of interest, being fundamental for cinematographic arts that very often have been inspired by Sicilian landscapes, characters and traditions translated into extraordinary people and places and finally resulting in film royalty. Sicily and cinema together led to the realisation of cinematographic master pieces, incomparable movies in which transpire a very strong “sense of the place” to which refer many constituent elements contributing to create “the image of Sicily”. The island has a strict relation with the cinema industry, which allows narrating its history, among lies and truth, sadness and beauties. A pivotal factor, which contributes to valorise and grow the importance of the existing relation between Sicily and the cinema industry, has been the land itself, often described as a natural set, under the open sky, resulting in a very attractive set. Beside cinematographic vocation, has to be considered the implementation of a new “trend” of cultural tourism, which is mainly interested in valorise landscape and cinematographic locations, making of the cinema industry an instrument of economic growth, promotion of environmental and cultural heritage of our land. The choice of dedicating more and more importance to the cinema – landscape concept derives from the awareness of the pivotal importance of landscape in the cinema industry, paying very much attention to the valorisation of the environment from the natural, cultural and economic point of view. Recently Italian cinematography, intending not only movies, but also TV fiction, animation, documentary, and so on, is trying to favour the development of the environment in various regions of our country, with the main objective of reaching the other European and world realities.