€100 Million Fund to Back Films and TV Shot in Italy

A €100 million ($112 million) fund is opening to finance films and television series made in Italy.

The vehicle is called the One Media Capital Fund. It comes from Media Capital Technologies and Italy's RP1 Holding, and was unveiled on Tuesday, 20 October, during the Rome MIA Market's new European Investment Hub, according to Variety.

The money is for shoots in Italy. The fund will target Italian and international film and TV production companies that film in the country.

It will also back Italian distribution companies, the businesses that put finished films into cinemas and onto other screens. In this case financing means helping distributors cash flow their investments, in other words advancing cash against money they expect to earn back later.

Media Capital Technologies, known as MCT, is led by chief executive Raj Singh. Singh is also co-founder of the company, which describes itself as a specialty finance company focused on strategic investments in premium content, meaning it provides loans and investment specifically for high-end film and TV.

Its partner, RP1 Holding, is headed by Mauro Martani, the former finance chief of Italian production company Wildside. RP1 has previously supported productions including Conclave, Emily in Paris, House of Gucci and The Equalizer 3.

The launch took place inside MIA's European Investment Hub, a new strand set up to connect producers with investors. MIA, the International Audiovisual Market held in Rome, announced the hub in September, according to Cineuropa.

Italy is already a large production base. The value of Italian content production exceeds €2.24 billion a year, according to Italy's TV producers' association APA.

What makes this stand out is the focus. This is not development money for scripts. It is production and distribution finance tied to shooting and releasing work in Italy, which decides where crews are hired and where location spending lands.