“We’ve had 2-3 big projects from Hollywood coming to us and have seen an immediate increase of interest from foreign producers,” confirmed Truls Kontny Head of the Film Commission Norway to nordiskfilmogtvfond.com.
Among the projects is Tomas Alfredson’s film adaptation of Jo Nesbø’s novel The Snowman, produced by Working Title for Universal. Jeff Laplante, Universal Pictures’s president of physical production was among the US delegation that visited Oslo last week. He told NRK he was pleased with Norway’s new tax scheme, but regretted the NOK 45 million ceiling (around €4.8 million) on reimbursement set aside by the government for 2016.
Kontny said representatives of the Norwegian film industry attended another hearing at the Parliament on Tuesday and pleaded as well for a removal to the reimbursement cap “We are all very pleased with the 25% filming incentive, but are still waiting for clarifications concerning rules and regulations,” noted Kontny who said that final details will be announced late November when the new Film Budget will be fully implemented.
Iceland
Norway’s new filming tax incentive is putting pressure on another Nordic territory-Iceland that so far has lured many Hollywood projects - from Oblivion, Interstellar to the TV series Fortitude - thanks to its 20% reimbursement scheme. In 2014 the Icelandic government reimbursed as much as ISK 1,574,307,492 (around €11 million) in filmmaking expenditure.
Einar Tómasson, Iceland’s Film Commissioner said: “I believe it [Norway’s 25% reimbursement scheme] will increase competition for certain types of projects."
Many Icelandic industry people – including Baltasar Kormákur - have been lobbying their government for an increase of the 20% tax incentive to 25-30%. Last week at an industry gathering in Reykjavik, the director of Everest said he hoped for his next mega project – the $80 million Viking epic also produced by Working Title for Universal – to be shot partly in Iceland. Indoor scenes would still be shot in the UK where a 25% reimbursement scheme is also available.
According to Iceland’s newspaper Morgunbladid, Iceland’s Minister of Industry Ragnheiður Elín Árnadóttir who attended the meeting said that the current tax reimbursement scheme will expire in 2016 and the local government is looking into both changing the percentage and simplifying the entire system.