01/02/2013 - After 10 years of discussions, the Danish capital of Copenhagen joins the competition for a place on the international film map

Copenhagen – the capital of Denmark – will instigate a regional film fund of €4.7 million for the next three years, to attract foreign film productions and place the city on the international film map.

Copenhagen’s culture mayor, Pia Allerslev, expected the fund to be established and a managing director in operation before the summer - “still this is an industry fund, not arts support,” she added. Producers receiving support must spend two-and-a-half times the money on film-related businesses in the region, and the fund is expected to create a turnover of at least 3.25 times its investments.

The fund has been under discussion for the past ten years: “But better late than never,” said Managing Director Klaus Hansen, of the Danish Producers Association. “It should both keep Danish productions at home and draw some foreign projects to the country, increasing the revenue in a striving industry, and creating more jobs in the production, confirmed that the fund has been under discussion during the past ten years.”

Instead of filming in Copenhagen, both local and foreign producers have chosen Danish locations eg on Funen, where they can get local finance, among others Danish director Susanne Bier’s Oscar-winning In a Better World [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Or they have moved the production to Sweden, Germany or the Czech Republic to exploit attractive incentives.

Denmark’s so far two regional film funds, FilmFyn on Funen and The West-Danish Film Fund in Aarhus, have annual budgets of €1.3 million and €0.6 million, respectively. Funen most recently entered Danish director Pernille Fischer Christensen’s Someone You Love, while Aarhus supported Danish director Nikolaj Arcel’s Oscar-nominated A Royal Affair [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mikkel Boe Følsgaard
interview: Nikolaj Arcel
film profile].