Every year the count of Italian titles in the Venice competition is treated as a measure of the health of Italian cinema. It is a poor measure, and not because the films are bad. It is a poor measure because the count is decided by financing calendars as much as by selection.
Italian features are frequently assembled from several sources: a broadcaster, a regional film fund, a tax credit, and a co production partner abroad. Each source has its own timetable, and a film that closes its financing in the autumn will not be finished for a festival the following summer. The films that make the deadline are the ones whose money arrived early, which is not the same set as the ones that are best.
This matters because selection at Venice has consequences that outlast the festival. A competition slot changes distribution terms, foreign sales, and the willingness of the same funders to back the director's next project. A film that missed the cut for calendar reasons is competing next year against a stronger field with a year old negative.
None of this is an argument against the festival, which selects what it is shown. It is an argument for reading the annual count as what it is: a snapshot of which productions were funded on time, in a system where being funded on time is largely a matter of which committee met when.