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The Logging Business

More than half of the "renewable" energy used in the European Union is produced by burning wood. It is called “forestry biomass” and it is subsidized with 17 billion euro every year. This video investigation shows how these incentives push the destruction of European forests and foster woody mafia in Romania and Italy.

Two months after the broadcast of the video-investigation on Rainews, 31 people working in the forestry biomass supply chain in Calabria (Italy) were arrested in a police operation led by the anti-‘Ndrangeta public prosecutor Nicola Gratteri, for links to criminal organizations and fraud of public money.

  • Ludovica Jona
    Director
  • Ludovica Jona
    Writer
  • Ludovica Jona
    Producer
  • Filippo Bellantoni
    Editor
  • Catalin Cătălin Prisacariu
    Researcher in Romania
  • Gaudenzio Contestabile
    Soundtrack in the Suceava forest
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    L'affare dei tagli boschivi
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    28 minutes 58 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    July 5, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    20 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Italy
  • Country of Filming:
    Belgium, Italy, Romania
  • Language:
    English, Italian
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Ludovica Jona

Ludovica Jona is an investigative journalist, a film-maker and video-producer. Contributor at La7 national tv and at Il Fatto Quotidiano online newspaper. Her works appeared on Rainews, Rai3, The Intercept and Mediapart among other media organizations. She received national and international media awards.
With her reportage “The Truth Machine” on the lie detector funded by the European Commission to contrast illegal migration (Report Rai3, 2019), she was the only journalist who managed to test the artificial intelligence system and collect evidences that it doesn’t work. Her short reportage “What I miss about you” (Tagadà La7, 2020) on the loneliness in psychiatric facilities during and after the Covid pandemic, won the “Fratelli tutti” media award for tv programs, released by Corecom Lazio. She also contributed to video-investigations on the business of pharmaceutical companies during the Covid pandemic (Report Rai, 2021) and on how European development funds are spent for migration control (La Stampa, 2017).
She was co-author of the documentary “Mohammed and the Fisherman” (2012) broadcast in Italy (RaiStoria), Finland (Yle), Switzerland (SF-DRS) and Denmark (DR), which won various film awards.
Her video-investigation “Terminal Rifugiati” (Rainews, 2011) on the cooperatives' business on the management of refugees in Rome, anticipated the well-know magistrature investigation “Mafia Capitale”.
Member of the Italian Journalists Association since 2008, she speaks fluently English and Spanish. Degree in Political science with specialization in Multimedia communication and International relations.

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