3. Increase in co-productions
by Annika Pham
If more foreign producers have tried to tap into the UK ‘soft money’ haven over the last couple of years, the lure of attractive tax breaks or/and cheaper labour and post-production facilities in countries such as Canada, Australia/New Zealand, Ireland, Germany, Luxembourg or Eastern Europe have also encouraged more British producers to film abroad. In 2002 in particular, the trend was towards fewer international films made in the UK (17 in 2001 and 15 in 2002) while twice as many co-productions were shot abroad (28 in 2002). The most active international co-production partners for British producers were France and Canada (six films each) followed by Germany and Ireland (4 films each), Italy, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg (3 films each) and The Netherlands and Eastern Europe (2 films each).
The growing international nature of the film industry highlighted by the large number of co-productions being made abroad in 2002, was underlined by the Steve Norris, the British Film Commissioner, who reiterated the Film Council’s blueprint for the future: “If we are to build a stable-and-growing film industry in the UK, then we need to ensure that we continue to offer the skills and infrastructure necessary both to attract overseas filmmakers to use them, and to make attractive, world class films of our own, which will be distributed and seen internationally as well as in the UK”.
In the near future, the British film industry must prepare for major changes due before the end of 2003 when the UK TV market is scheduled for deregulation, and by 2005 when production tax breaks are scheduled to end.
The Film Council will continue to work hard this year on shifting the emphasis of its support from production to distribution and exhibition. It also intends lobbying the British government to introduce two new measures that will, it is hoped, contribute to strengthening the local film industry: distribution-led tax breaks (under which P&A costs could be factored into sales and leaseback production deals) to replace the existing production tax breaks, and quotas for broadcasters to force them to invest in local film production, as happens in many other European countries.
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