A successful year for filmmakers: more than 15 mln Euro collected by taking advantage of the Lithuanian Film Tax Incentive

The Film Tax Incentive running in Lithuania for the 9th year has yet again broken the records of success – in 2021 the investment has grown significantly, the number of film projects taking advantage of it has increased, as well as the number of international film projects in Lithuania.

According to the data of the Lithuanian Film Centre, the Film Tax Incentive is increasing each year. Last year filmmakers, have received more than 15 mln Euro of gratuitous investments by taking advantage of the Incentive. Compared with the wonderful results of 2020 the sum of financial aid has grown by 26%. That is the highest sum received through the whole period since the Incentive has been in place.

By taking advantage of the Incentive, international filmmakers have spent a lot in Lithuania. They have spent as much as 37.9 mln Euro and have gone past the spending of the previous years significantly.

The number of financed films has grown greatly in just a year. A total of 71 new films that took advantage of the Incentive were financed in 2021, of those – 40 were domestic, 19 -foreign productions and 12 co-production film projects.

In 2021 Lithuania was yet again very appealing to the international film industry, thanks to the successful operation of the Incentive, high standard of services provided and attractive locations, 19 foreign projects were working in Lithuania. Of those, as many as 10 – Scandinavian region film projects – 5 Swedish and 5 Norwegian. Another 3 projects were filmed by the filmmakers from the United Kingdom, as well as other projects with filmmakers from Germany, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia.

The most investments in 2021 were received by the Swedish film projects – the second season of Young Wallander(dir. Jens Jonsson, Mani Masserat, filming services provided by – UAB Ahil) – 1.61 mln Euro, also the mini-series The Playlist (dir. Per-Olav Sørensen, filming services provided by UAB Ahil) – 1.60 mln Euro, and Hilma af Klint (dir. Lasse Hallström, filming services taken care of by – Paprikai filmai) – 1.36 mln Euro.

Domestic project to receive the highest investments las year was the sci-fi film Vesper Seeds directed by Kristina Buožytė and Bruno Samper, receiving 715,000 Euro. Throughout the whole period of the Incentive being in place this is the highest sum ever to be received by a domestic film.

Lithuanian Film Centre has noticed the constancy of the companies’ investments. In 2021 a total of 126 investment certificates were issued to 78 investors, of those 28 Lithuanian companies were taking advantage of the Film Tax Incentive for the first time, the rest were repeat investors. This shows that businesses trust in the Incentive is increasing, the operation of the Incentive is understood and thus businesses commit to invest even larger sums.

In total throughout 2014 to 2021, 228 Lithuanian businesses have invested into filmmaking by taking advantage of the Incentive, in total 50.7 mln Euro were attracted into the filmmaking industry, throughout the whole period international filmmakers have spent more than 140 mln Euro in Lithuania, a quarter of these expenses were received in 2021 alone. In nine years, the incentive was used for the funding of 286 films – investments were made for production of 144 domestics film projects, 72 foreign films and 70 co-productions.

The purpose of the Lithuanian Film Tax Incentive which came into force in 2014 is to create favourable conditions for filmmaking in Lithuania. It can be taken advantage of by a Lithuanian business, by providing financial aid for filmmaking and thus reducing their taxable income and income tax. This incentive not only creates better conditions for filmmaking in Lithuania but is also beneficial to other sectors. The growing scale of film projects provides thousands of places of temporary employment, the hotel occupancy increases due to arrival of film crews from abroad, café, restaurant businesses benefit from the visiting crews as well, just like the transportation and vehicle hire sectors.