Z365" or "Festival all year round" is the new strategic point of the Festival in which converge investigation, accompaniment and development of new talents (Ikusmira Berriak, Nest); training and cinematic knowledge transfer (Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, Zinemaldia + Plus, Filmmakers' dialogue); and investigation, disclosure and cinematic thought (Z70 project, Thought and Discussion and Research and publications).
Spain’s service sector org, the Audiovisual Production Professionals Assn. (APPA), launched a call Saturday at San Sebastian for French-style tax rebates for international shoots’ local spend in Spain.
Woody Allen Midnight in Paris, Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter, and Christopher Nolan’s Inception have all used the Gallic rebates, approved in 2008. APPA’s tub-thumping addresses an anomaly. Rebates on local spend for Hollywood shoots range from Germany’s 16%, to the U.K.’s (16%-20%), France’s 20% and Italy’s 25%. In Spain to date, there are none whatsoever. That’s a large loss, APPA head, producer Fernando Victoria de Lecea, argued Saturday at San Sebastian.
For every foreign shoot which settled in Spain, “two or three” have inspected locations, budgets, and Spain’s Ciudad de la Luz mega-studio, but finally gone to other countries with rebates, lamented Victoria, a line-producer on Spanish shoots of French films such as Jean-Jacques Annaud’s His Majesty Minor and Guillaume Canet-starrer Jappeloup. Tax rebates on international shoots rep an all-the-more-pressing stimulus measure given the country’s financial crisis, which is decimating national production, Victoria argued.
“International shoots create jobs, can maintain production houses, train producers and mean an immediate local spend, industrial development, and significant promotion and publicity for Spain”, Victoria said.
APPA is currently conducting a study of European tax breaks. Gaul’s Tax Rebate for International Production (TRIP) has a relatively low cap of Euros4 million ($5.2 million) per shoot, compared to about $16 million in Germany. But a Spanish cap should be set “somewhat lower” than France’s, Victoria said. Spain already offers 18% Aie tax breaks to
private investors, a deduction which rises to 38% in its Canary Islands. These breaks only apply to films that qualify as Spanish nationality, however, Victoria pointed out.
The tax rebates would be available to just non-Spanish shoots. APPA has held a preliminary meeting with Spain’s Ministry of Culture. After San Sebastian, the next step will be to talk with Spain’s finance and tax authorities and its Tourism, Industry and Commerce ministry.
J.H.