Foreign films lensing in France will be on the rise in 2016, according to Variety.
Thanks to a recent increase in the Tax Rebate for International Productions scheme, foreign films shooting in France will get another ten percent in rebates, from 20% to 30% over last year. Olivier René Veillon predicts that 2016 will be “the biggest year ever for foreign shoots in France,” even though “Europe remains cheaper.”
Clay Petere’s Sundance seed IO is slated to film in France in 2016, along with Christopher Nolan’s next project, Dunkirk, and Neil Jordan’s crime miniseries Riviera. Asian producers are also taking advantage of the scheme, with South Korean film Legend Of King Arthur and Bollywood production Bekfire to film in France this year.
Animated features already enjoy the higher rebate rate, but some native productions will get the same bump as foreign films, so long as they have a significant amount of visual effects and CGI, making the productions as much of a boon to the visual effects industry in France as animated films.
The adjustment is partially thanks to Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets, a big-budget feature with an official French pedigree that director Luc Besson threatened to film elsewhere. The new rules will reportedly save the production over $30 million. The ability of foreign producers to partner with French production companies and still qualify for the tax credit is a significant enticement.
Smaller films and TV series were made eligible for the TRIP rates in 2015, including the Jacqueline Kennedy biopic and Natalie Portman vehicle, Jackie, produced by Daron Aronofsky and set in the United States—but filmed largely in France.
The previous rate of 20% was attractive enough to filmmakers that both Nolan and Woody Allen lensed Inception and Midnight In Paris there, respectively.
