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This paper addresses the need for local cultural policies targeting cinema exhibition. Portugal evidences extreme dependency upon the central government, including for local movie screening, thus expressing the Portuguese high territorial asymmetry. Our research discusses the importance of noncommercial exhibition for countering this situation, as it is implemented by local agents (not only film societies) with a wider cultural intervention. When reflecting on the European countries policies for cinema and acknowledging the big socioeconomic and historical differences between Portugal and the Nordic countries, the regional-local initiatives of the latter emerged as an important issue for decentralization, especially the Norwegian scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, 'place-based' interventions have become influential in shaping economic development policy, especially at the European level. From the 2007 to 2013 programming period onwards, EU Cohesion policy, adopted a 'place-based' approach to encourage the competitiveness of all regions. Rather than spatially-blind interventions, the focus is on tackling territorial inequalities via a more sophisticated spatially-sensitive approach to stimulate economic change, at the local level. The challenge is that place-based policies are complex, risky and the performance indicators used to capture the achievements from EU Cohesion policy focus on direct results rather than expected policy change, making it hard to prove effectiveness and value for money. This paper contributes to ongoing academic and policy debates about how to capture the achievements of EU Cohesion policy, through an in-depth case study of 'place-based' interventions made via Interreg funding, to encourage cross-border cooperation between Spain and Portugal. The evidence illustrates that there is a need for novel approaches, which are conceptually informed and spatially sensitive to be able to capture not only the quantitative but also the qualitative achievements generated through EU 'place-based' interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]