Belgium’s new Screen Flanders fund will be launched next week at the Cannes Film Festival. Worth EUR5 million annually, the fund will be accessible for features, documentaries and animations, with a EUR400,000 per-project cap.
Saskatchewan in central Canada has proposed a new location filming tax credit. Its 45% refundable programme was cancelled in March as a cost-saving exercise, but the provincial Government has said that a non-refundable 25% tax credit will be launched in July 2012.
The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) in the US has clashed with the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) over the issue of filming incentives in states like New York. In a white paper, the ANA has stated that rebate payments should be the sole property of advertisers.
North Carolina is planning new funding to boost its film crew base. Announced from EUE/Screen Gems Studios, the programme would include ten new training courses to be set up in Wilmington and would take in as many as 400 people over a five-week period.
Authorities in Washington, DC, want to attract more filming productions to the US capital, but are keen to crunch the numbers before committing to any kind of incentive. The first step in the process will be to authorise a feasibility study looking at the benefits of an incentive programme.
Ohio’s filming industries are pushing for the state filming incentive to be renewed and improved as its expiry approaches as The Avengers rolls out to cinemas around the world. The hotly-anticipated comic book film shot partly in Cleveland, doubling the mid-western metropolis for New York City.
Arizona is in the process of reinstating the location filming incentive that was cancelled two years ago. The plan is to launch a 30% tax credit that will help make Arizona more competitive with neighbouring states, although there’s still intense opposition from conservative politicians.
The Alaskan location filming incentive has proved controversial, but the state has decided to keep it alive on a long-term basis. Over the next decade USD200 million will be channelled into the programme, with a series of changes designed to boost its appeal to feature projects like Big Miracle.