Actress, director and humanitarian Angelina Jolie, in an effort to boost the currently failing Cambodian film industry will serve as the president of the honourary committee for this year’s Cambodia International Film Festival. Her interaction with the festival is expected to spark interest in the country as a filming location.
[slideshow id=409]The filming incentive landscape continues to shift in the US. While the majority of states still have filming incentive programmes in place, only a few offer support generous enough to attract high-profile TV series or big-budget feature films.
Michigan has ended its filming incentive programme. The news comes only a few months after superhero movie Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice wrapped principal photography in Detroit. However, the incentive itself had been in turmoil since the start of the year.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is pushing for strong international trade agreements to boost the distribution of US film and TV. In turn this could help stimulate filming in America and in states like New York which hosted 277 films in 2013 and 2014.
Malta has announced a production agreement with China is close and that the Maltese industry saw a huge increase in international spending in 2014. Transformers director Michael Bay is among the high-profile filmmakers planning a Malta shoot in the near future.
Matt Damon and Andy Lau will lead the cast of new historical epic The Great Wall, which is being billed as the largest-ever movie to film in China for international distribution. Set in the 15th century, the feature will follow soldiers defending humanity from the secrets of the wall.
The major new Chinese filming facility Wanda Studios Qingdao has made its debut at the AFCI Locations Show. Scheduled to open in mid-2017 in the Shandong Province of eastern China, the studios will be a subsidiary of Dalian Wanda Group and are set to span nearly 500 acres.
The UK and China have ratified a film co-production deal at the Great Festival of Creativity in Hong Kong. Official co-productions will get access to the UK’s filming incentives, while the deal also means that the UK industry will get better access to the lucrative Chinese market.