Portugal has received 25 applications, and has approved 18 for incentives to capture footage, a system of cash rebate of the “most attractive ones on the market,” said Luís Chaby Vaz, president of the Cinema and Audiovisual Institute ( ICA).
At the European Film Market (EFM) in Berlin, the president of the ICA stressed that the results of the applications are “very positive, with a huge diversity of projects, films and backgrounds,” which allows placing Portugal “on the map of international filming“.
The incentive for cinematographic and audiovisual production and filming in national territory is one of the programs provided for in the Support Fund for Tourism and Cinema that started in June 2018. The annual allocation of this incentive is 12 million euros, being 10 million in the first year.
“We want to exhaust the sums envisaged as soon as possible so that we can force our respective guardians to realize that this is an important tool and we can increase the amounts allocated to this initiative. We have a target of 12 million by 2019 and I believe, and everything indicates that we will achieve it. We are very confident that this year we will have huge projects to be run in Portugal, “said Luís Chaby Vaz.
“Even today we had another presentation session (…) with the presence of the Minister of Culture and the Secretary of State for Tourism, which also reinforces the importance that the government is giving to this tool to attract “said the president of ICA, adding that” all the partners “with whom they contacted revealed that” the system created by Portugal is one of the most attractive in the market. ”
For Luís Chaby Vaz there is no doubt that this will have “a direct impact on the capture of shoots” in Portugal, remembering that the applications approved so far correspond to an investment of more than 25 million euros in Portugal”.
Of the projects already supported by this cash rebate system are, for example, “The Color Out of Space” by director Richard Stanley, starring Nicolas Cage as “Fatima” by director Marco Pontecorvo or“, by Ivo M. Ferreira, who is present in one of the sections of the Berlinale.
In the 69th edition of the Berlin Film Festival, there are eight national films, among them “A Portuguesa” by Rita Azevedo Gomes, or “Serpentário” by Carlos Conceição.
“As in previous years, I believe it is a festival in which Portuguese cinema and Portuguese projects are received with great expectation in various sections of the festival, with many meetings of producers, with much interest on the part of the market,” he said. the president of the Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual.
Luís Chaby Vaz acknowledges that “the festival is going through a transitional moment between directions“, which does not detract from the event.
“It is only natural that the outgoing directorates want to be able to not link the direction that is going to come with a certain type of programming. The new direction must be given to affirm what will be the profile of the festival in the coming years. have enormous potential, is one of the main European festivals, ” he says.
