Film incentives introduced at Malta seminar

From this year the Maltese government is offering film incentives on a case by case basis to film production companies shooting in Malta, Parliamentary Secretary George Hyzler told the opening of the MEDEA 'Script Development' seminar.

The seminar was in Malta by the Mediterranean and European Audiovisual Development Programme (MEDEA) and The Malta Film Commission in collaboration with EAVE, the European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs; 25 MEDEA beneficiaries, one of which is Maltese, and another 15 local observers are attending this seminar aimed at training participants in project development focusing particularly on documentaries.

The Maltese project benefiting from MEDEA funds is titled 'Inside out Malta' and is being produced by Marie Briguglio, from Where's Everybody.

Dr Hyzler announced that next year a major Hollywood production and some other projects have confirmed their presence in Malta. Referring to the training of local audiovisual professionals, Dr Hyzler said Malta had no specific policy for training in film and television.

"The contribution that the Malta Film Commission is offering annually to the development of local professionals is already demonstrating results, however one cannot deny that there is room for more assistance," Dr Hyzler said.

"The recent agreement, between the Malta Film Commission and the Employment Training Corporation leading to the first series of short training courses in different technical fields of the audiovisual sector is already a milestone. To increase our labour force in this sector, especially in the higher ranks of a production, during the first week of December, we will be training around 40 local professionals and promising workers in the film and television industry.'

Two Maltese companies are already benefiting from MEDEA and are receiving financial assistance and training to develop a feature film and the documentary. Dr Hyzler said this clearly confirmed that Malta has the creative talent, willing to produce good quality, audiovisual content and this needed to be encouraged, developed and promoted.