ErosAntEros’s appeal following ministry cuts: “help us support our activities through the 2025 Art Bonus”, “Ravennanotizie.it,” December 14 2025
https://www.ravennanotizie.it/2025/12/14/lappello-di-erosanteros-dopo-i-tagli-ministeriali-aiutateci-a-sostenete-le-nostre-attivita-con-lart-bonus-2025/588784/

“Help us support our activities through the 2025 Art Bonus”. In short, this is the appeal to local companies launched by ErosAntEros, which just this year celebrated its 15th anniversary, organizing—among other things—a record-breaking edition of POLIS Teatro Festival with a 50% increase in audience numbers.


Due to equally ‘record-breaking’ cuts by the Ministry of Culture, the Ravenna-based theatre company now finds itself in difficulty: indeed, as the 2025 financial year closes, they are 15,000 euros short. Speaking about this are the founders and artistic directors, Davide Sacco and Agata Tomšič.


THE INTERVIEW


In general, what is your take on the Ministry of Culture’s cuts, which were based on ‘artistic quality’ scores—one of the parameters that ultimately determines whether an organization is admitted and the level of financial contribution awarded?

The issue has been widely discussed, including in the media. Essentially, during the admission phase for grants from the Ministry’s FNSV – Fondo Nazionale Spettacolo dal Vivo (National Fund for the Performing Arts) for the 2025–2027 three-year period, the committee responsible for evaluating ‘artistic quality’ experienced clear internal conflicts, leading to the resignation of some of its members. In certain situations, it arrived at evaluations that were drastically different from the previous three-year period. In extreme cases, some festivals suddenly dropped from 29 points in 2024 to 9 in 2025—falling below the minimum threshold of 10 points—completely losing their ministry funding for the three-year period, with catastrophic consequences.

As far as you are concerned, the cut to your artistic quality scores was 7.9 points.


Our organization achieved recognition and funding from the FNSV in the ‘theatre festival’ category starting in 2021 (Editor’s note: an exceptional, single-year grant), and then for the 2022–2024 three-year period, consistently ranking first for ‘artistic quality’ among all theatre festivals in Italy. In 2024, our score was 26.70 points, and we were still in first place. This year, it was 18.80 points (-7.90), causing us to drop to fourteenth place. Paradoxically, all of this happened at a time when, even just by historical and chronological measures, we are experiencing massive growth: our 2025 project was obviously superior in every sense to that of 2024, just as 2024 was to the previous year, and so on. This growth was understood by the other public bodies, which in recent years have considerably increased their contributions in our favor at each renewal (Editor’s note: L.13 Emilia-Romagna Region and Cultural Conventions of the Municipality of Ravenna). However, with the Ministry, it seems we have fallen into some sort of conflict. At a moment when we expected an increase in the FNSV grant—in our application, we had cautiously requested just over 20,000 euros more than the previous three-year period—the drop in our score severely penalized us, ultimately resulting in a grant lower than that of 2024.


In recent months, Regional President Michele de Pascale and Regional Councilor for Culture Gessica Allegni declared that the Region ‘would do its part to support cultural organizations unfairly hit.’ Do you know if anything is moving in that direction?


As far as we know, the Region strongly stood up in defense of the performing arts sector, setting aside a rainy-day fund to support organizations that suffered ‘cuts’ from the Ministry. The methods for distributing these funds were quickly decided, and they have, in fact, already been allocated. Unfortunately, our organization is not among those supported by this specific measure due to the assignment criteria defined, but it was nevertheless a positive sign.

However, there is an alternative path to finance your activities: patronage through the Ministry’s Art Bonus. Can it really work?

The Art Bonus is already an excellent tool today, open to improvement, which can and must work. Essentially, anyone—whether companies or individuals—can become a patron by supporting an Art Bonus beneficiary organization with a donation. In return, the patron will gain visibility through the beneficiary, which will certainly not fail to thank its supporters. Furthermore, by donating through the Art Bonus, the patron receives a tax credit equal to 65% of the donated amount. Companies need to understand the power of this tool. It is not just about supporting important cultural organizations—which is right and proper—but also about bringing visibility to their own businesses, while recovering a large part of the money through the tax credit.

As far as you are concerned, you can count on the support of the two foundations active in the city for your activities. At the moment, there is an open fundraising campaign… Every year we launch an Art Bonus fundraising campaign. For 2025, we have 11,000 euros related to the support that, for several years now, Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna and Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Ravenna have been granting us. With this call, we hope to build new, long-lasting relationships with companies capable of understanding the potential of this tool and the importance of the work we can do together for our local community.

For the near future, is it realistic to expect donations from other organizations as well?

We sincerely hope so, and that is exactly why we launched this widespread appeal. While on one hand it is fairly common for a theatre company not to have many private supporters, on the other hand, it is surprising that a festival with the European scope of POLIS has not found any yet—especially considering it has been recognized and supported for years by public bodies at all levels, as well as embassies, language and cultural institutes from across Europe, and foundations.

Now that 2025 is drawing to a close, what is the financial outlook?

We have a deficit of just over 15,000 euros. This is why we decided to issue a ‘call to action’ to companies—primarily from the Ravenna and Romagna areas, but not exclusively—to help us close out the year and perhaps support us even more strongly in the future.

In light of these difficulties, do you have any changes planned for 2026?

The upcoming edition will continue along the path we have already paved. POLIS has now evolved into an international contemporary theatre festival that dedicates each year to a different geographical area. We do this through a specific focus featuring artists, companies, and productions from that region, alongside thematically connected Italian and European productions. Following the 2025 Iberian Focus, we can already announce that for 2026 we will host a Nordic Focus, dedicated to Scandinavia and the Baltic Republics. Beyond the main focus, as always, there will be projects and shows coming from the national and international networks we belong to. Our goal remains to give space to emerging creativity, build local community ties, and engage young people as well as those who do not yet attend the theatre due to socio-economic reasons.

What goals do you have for the future, resources permitting?

We want to continue growing our organization and the projects we create, providing greater recognition and stability for the people who work with us every day. To achieve this, our goals remain twofold. First and foremost, to continue conceiving shows and co-producing them with leading European theatres and festivals, creating major productions just as we did with our 2024 ‘Saint Joan of the Stockyards’. Secondly, we wish to grow POLIS Teatro Festival, bringing the leading figures of the international contemporary theatre scene to Ravenna and increasingly encouraging exchanges between Italy, Ravenna, and Europe. For all of this, the Art Bonus can be a fundamental tool: https://artbonus.gov.it/2755-polis-teatro-festival.html