Hollywood is back on the banks of the Tiber

Rome

INSIDE the Cinecittà film studios, originally built by Mussolini in part to produce fascist propaganda, a catapult is parked beside Soundstage 13. Not far away, craftsmen touch up chariots. The props are for the remake of the 1959 swords-and-sandals epic, Ben-Hur, which is consuming much of the vast studio lot, if not all of it.

Five soundstages are being used to film the Ben Stiller comedy Zoolander 2. And crews for the James Bond thriller Spectre used the studio in March while shooting scenes around Rome, including at the Ponte Sisto, the ancient pedestrian bridge over the Tiber River, and along the boulevards of Nomentano.

The recent arrival of Hollywood - which famously trekked here in the 1950s and 1960s - is in part because Rome is one of the most visually alluring and historically resonant cities in the world. But it is also about money. Having watched different countries use financial incentives to attract lucrative Hollywood productions, Italy's Ministry of Culture has sweetened the tax credits provided to foreign movie companies.

"This is what we were shouting for," said Giuseppe Basso, the general manager of Cinecittà, who recently visited Los Angeles to pitch major studios to shoot films in Italy instead of other countries. "We were a company fighting against nations."

For ordinary Romans, the new influx of movies has provided fodder for local paparazzi, as stars such as Stiller and Daniel Craig, who plays James Bond, have been spotted around town. And it has offered a new opportunity to vent regular complaints about how Rome is dirty and falling apart, and how city officials are doing too little about it - except when movies are in town.

"Dear James Bond," wrote the journalist Fabrizio Roncone in a mock letter published in Corriere della Sera, a leading national newspaper. "Please don't leave Rome! You managed something that seemed impossible. An example? You got traffic officers to work at night."

He added: "And to save the suspension of your legendary Aston Martin, a good number of potholes have been fixed. Believe me - a miracle!"

The glory days of Hollywood filmmaking in Rome came during the 1950s and 1960s - the so-called era of Hollywood on the Tiber. To many Americans, the defining film was Roman Holiday (1953), which depicted Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck riding a scooter around Rome. But the big-budget productions were the historical blockbusters including Quo Vadis (1951) and Ben-Hur. The biggest, Cleopatra (1963), became what was then the most expensive movie in history, with huge cost overruns that almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox.

Antonio Monda, a film professor at New York University, said the Hollywood-Rome connection gradually diminished in the 1960s for different reasons, including Italian hiring quotas for crews. Foreign films still came to Italy, but countries such as Bulgaria, Romania and the Czech Republic gradually began offering low-cost alternatives.

"If you don't make a law that helps, some of the locations, even the most beautiful in the world - which is Rome - become less appealing," said Prof Monda, who was recently named artistic director of the Rome Film Festival. "If you have to spend 100 euros (S$147) in Rome and 30 in Romania, I'll go to Romania. But if you can spend 40 in Rome and, say, 35 or 40 in Romania, I'll go to Rome."

The policy was initiated last year and allows each production company to claim a tax rebate of up to 10 million euros on expenses incurred in Italy, meaning big-budget films produced by more than one company receive bigger savings. NYT