Lights, camera... legislation

A package of incentives to give new life to the film industry in Malta will become available in June, Public Investments Minister Austin Gatt told Parliament yesterday.

The incentives will be aimed at encouraging capital investment in facilities, creating employment and attracting film producers to Malta.

Dr Gatt was speaking when he introduced a bill to regulate the operations of the Film Commission and the Film Commissioner.

The commission was set up five years ago but Dr Gatt explained that there was currently no law on how the commission should operate.

The purpose of the commission, in terms of the new law, will be to act as the body responsible for the promotion, development and support of the audiovisual industry and to decide on and administer incentives that may be provided to this sector.

Dr Gatt said Malta had had a film industry of sorts for several years but there was no structure to oversee and develop it properly. For a time Malta had an advantage because of the availability of the Rinella tanks. That was the result of a private investment made in the 1960s which was nationalised in the 1970s and returned to the private sector in the 1990s.

Unfortunately the country had not been able to build on the advantage which those tanks had afforded and there had been hardly any major investment since. The situation now was that film companies which opted to come to Malta needed to bring with them practically all the equipment they needed.

Dr Gatt said the advantage of the water tanks had now been lost as several other countries had similar facilities. Nonetheless, the potential of the film industry was obvious. Malta had been able to attract a number of major films and other productions despite the lack of facilities. Malta Enterprise had therefore identified this sector as an area which deserved priority.

The potential of the industry was seen by the fact that every year, some $10 billion in new productions were shot outside the US.

Every dollar invested in a production created a further $3 in ancillary services.

Important for this sector to be successful were incentives, competitiveness and efficiency.

The incentives were needed because although Malta had its own natural beauty, favourable weather and ideal locations, those features were by no means unique.

Malta, Dr Gatt said would not aim just to attract major names and titles, however important Steven Spielberg, Troy and Gladiator were. What was needed was a steady supply of productions which did not normally make the headlines, including commercials but which could yield as much as $100,000 in a week. Having ongoing activity would justify private sector investment in the industry.

Malta could not sell itself as a destination that was cheap. There were cheaper locations. But it had to show itself to be a quality location that was competitive. That would not happen if some people thought they could make a fast buck from the film producers, such as local councils that charged Lm400 to close a square for traffic for a day. Neither could one tolerate bureaucracy which saw film companies waiting for months on end for permits or to get the VAT refunds they were entitled to.

Dr Gatt said incentives for the film industry would be drafted by next month and should be available by June. There would be three types of incentives.

The first would be aimed at encouraging the private sector to make capital investment on, say, a sound stage, cameras and editing suites.

The second would be incentives aimed at encouraging employment. In this context, the government would refund all national insurance contributions paid for every person on full time or part time employment in the film industry.

Thirdly, film producers would also be given financial incentives calculated as a percentage of their value added spending in Malta.

Dr Gatt said the target was that, for a start, Malta would have 15 weeks of film production this year, yielding Lm3 million. The country should eventually aim at having work on a production every week within three years.

He stressed that this was a private sector industry and if the industry was not successful in three years, then the government should pull out.

The minister then went over the provisions of the bill, stressing that the Film Commissioner and the other four members of the commission could not have any conflict of interest.

He said the commission, as far as possible, would use the facilities of Malta Enterprise.

The bill, he said, included provisions on co-production although none were planned.

Dr Gatt said he was confident that Malta could be successful in the film industry thanks to its workforce and attractions, as long as it showed itself to be a quality destination and as long as it kept bureaucracy at a minimum.

Concluding he thanked the two film commissioners who had served so far as well as former Parliamentary Secretary George Hyzler for having attracted productions to Malta despite limited resources.

Chris Agius (MLP) said it was good that the film industry in Malta was being given direction at last, and it was a pity that more was not done in the past for Malta to achieve better results. He said he disagreed that the commission would not enjoy executive powers, such powers resting solely on the film commissioner. He said the government could offer incentives in kind, such as free use by the film companies of police security. His remarks will be reported tomorrow.