Environmental sustainability has become a priority issue for the European audio-visual industry following years of experiments and negotiations between institutions and industry seeking to implement green public policy. Italy has emerged as a leader in this process. This article investigates the concept of ‘Italian ecocinema’ with attention to Italian legislative practices and the materialities of the film industry. Like other cultural industries, in Europe the audio-visual sector is highly regulated. It is financed by public institutions by virtue of the ‘Principle of Cultural Exception’, a model which allows public policy to impact the behaviour of industry. Drawing on interviews and case studies, we detail the process that led the Italian State to recognize and reward the application of green production protocols and explain what these commitments entail. We then describe the work being done to extend this model to the European level.
D’Urso et al. (2026) studied this question.