Foreign Films in Italy By Country

This infographic depicts the movies exported to Italy by country and region, from 2007 to 2016. As the data illustrate, North America (2.017 movies) and Europe (1.393) take up the majority of the market, followed by Asia (181), South America (64), Oceania (63), Middle East (47 + 7), Central America (27) and Africa (15).

Within each region, there are varying degrees of presence. Unsurprisingly, in North America the U.S. imports lead with 1.952 movies, while Canada has only 65 movies. This comes as a further confirmation of the U.S. dominance in the Italian film (and entertainment) market, not just from the linguistic point of view, but above all as the dominant production/distribution system, as well as the most pervasive and well-established in terms of cultures and imaginaries.

In Europe, France has the most exports (468), followed by the UK, Germany (138), Spain (112) and Denmark (47). This top 5 too seems not related to linguistic proximity – and only partially connected to cultural proximity if we talk about a Mediterranean country like Spain. If we contextualize the data, we note that, once again, the export policies of the afore-mentioned countries prove effective in terms of foreign market penetration, especially the French ones. As for the rest of the world, it is worth noticing the relevance of Japan (95 movies), China (25) and Argentina (28): for a more in-depth analysis, it would be useful to see if the number is steady or if it has grown over certain periods of time – and why it did so. Ultimately, this graphic reiterates the dominance of the U.S. exports in the Italian market, nevertheless, with interesting insights on consolidating and emerging countries.