The story of Malta’s film industry is long, with hits and misses. For every Malta-shot success like Midnight Express and Gladiator, there were box office failures like Popeye and By the Sea.
The work done by the Film Commission over several years has put Malta on the map of international film producers. There should always be financial support for the film industry but that does not automatically mean we are investing in a lucrative industry as Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo and Film Commissioner Johann Grech would have us believe.
The Film Commission, as presently headed, has been cruising from one controversy to another. In his 2020 annual report, Auditor General Charles Deguara attributed the prevailing “lack of effective control” to “a concentration of authority with the film commissioner and no independent oversight”.
By the look of things, that state of affairs took a turn for the worse, as the controversies over the millions spent in the Malta Film Awards last year and this summer’s Mediterrane Film Festival amply prove. It is clear to everyone by now that the film commission has a bottomless pit of cash with nobody assuming accountability, from the finance to the tourism ministries, via the prime minister.
It is clear to everyone that the film commission has a bottomless pit of cash with nobody assuming accountability, from the finance to the tourism ministries, via the prime minister
Incentives play a big part in drawing big films to Malta but that cannot mean an attitude of ‘give handouts now and explain later’, as, indeed, Grech appears to be arguing. As the auditor general too commented in his 2020 report, although “image plays a big part in the film industry, expenditure from public funds should still be carried out judiciously, according to the resources available and in line with prior approvals as per standing provisions”.
Yet, much like ‘the lady of the house’, – Mrs Bucket – Grech prefers to call all the shots within the commission he heads. Reacting to the auditor general’s ‘judicious expenditure’ comment, his commission replied that, in terms of costs (in this instance these referred to meals), “one should note and understand that, in the film industry, it is crucial that [the Malta Film Commission] keeps up appearances”.
However, what Grech and ‘his’ commission must first ensure is value for money, that public funds are well spent, and that waste and extravagance – vanity, too – is avoided when dealing with public resources.
The details emerging from a report by the European Commission on State aid justifiably raise questions about the generous rebates being given to film production companies shooting here.
Nobody is saying the fiscal incentives should be stopped but, rather, that the scheme should be sustainable and that it serves the purposes it was designed for.
Bartolo has promised that a report on the film industry’s impact on the Maltese economy will be published in the first half of September. Hopefully, it will be detailed enough to allow a thorough assessment of the expenditure and return and whether the scheme’s aims are being fully met.
The crucial question one expects the report to answer is whether it is the case that a big part of the public funds given to filmmakers is spent abroad and just a small fraction remains here. One hopes the scheme has in-built safeguards against ‘creative accounting’ being employed to hide foreign purchases.
And until the public is given a thorough explanation, nobody can blame critics who believe Grech is simply on an inflated ego trip with easy access to Hollywood stars and millions in taxpayers’ money. This has to stop.