October, 2005

Published in Screen International

BLUE SKY THINKING

Malta has been attracting film-makers for decades - but is facing increased competition from other low-cost production hubs. GEOFFREY MACNAB looks at how the Mediterranean island is luring foreign producers.

Since the Mediterranean Film Studios - and its famous water tanks - opened in 1964, Malta has arranged big budget international projects.  Over the years, these have included the Lew Grade produced spectacular Raise the Titanic, Robert Altman's Popeye, Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me, Alan Parker's Midnight Express, Renny Harlin's Cutthroat Island and Wolfgang Peterson's Troy.  Most recently, Steven Spielberg's Munich spent five weeks on the island and Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code is heading to Malta in November.

It is not hard to see why along with the water tanks, the island boasts a great climate, most locals speak English, and it is relatively cheap compared with most Western European territories.

But by the end of the 1990's, there was a sense that Malta was not fulfilling its potential as a film location.  The rise of rival low-cost production centres around the globe, many offering state-of-the-art studio facilities and genuine financial incentives gave the island increased competition.

When two mega-projects, Ridley Scott's Gladiator and Jonathan Mostow's U-571 arrived on Malta at the same time in 1999, the government realized how lucrative film-making could be. Insiders estimate that Troy which shot in Malta for 11 weeks in 2003 and was in pre-production for around eight months, was worth around $30m in inward investment.  Gladiator, meanwhile was worth around $28m to the Maltese.  "That triggered the government to take the industry more seriously", says Oliver Mallia, film commissioner of the Malta Film Commission, the body set up in 1999 to woo international producers and smooth their paths once they came to the island.

Earlier this year, the government's 2005 Film Commission Act created incentives for producers "up to 20% of eligible expenditure of the Malta budget of a qualifying production....as a cash grant once filming is complete".  There is no obligation to engage a local producer or set up a local company to access the benefits. Nor, Mallia claims, is there red tape: producers are told within three weeks whether their application has been successful. Fiscal incentives - in the form of tax credits for companies and individuals providing services for the Maltese audiovisual industry - will be available from January 2006.

Bottom Line

The new measures seem to be having an effect. Munich, about the aftermath of the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, was already tipped to shoot in Malta before the new incentives were announced.  However, with the benefits in place, the film-makers upped their commitment to the island. "Obviously, the financial incentives made it a far more attractive place to shoot," says Munich producer Colin Wilson. "It does make a big difference to the bottom line".

Wilson, who also produced Troy, is uniquely well-placed to comment on the island's attractions. For Troy, he suggests, the lure was a base near the ocean with "wide open areas to build substantial sets and the guarantee of sunlight".  Meanwhile, for Munich, Malta provided the film-makers with the chance to recreate 1970s Mediterranean Europe.  Astonishingly, Malta stood in for seven countries during the shoot, and Spielberg used 42 different locations.  Unlike some of Munich's settings, Malta is also safe and convenient.

The island is positioning itself as an international co-producer. It is a member of the European convention on Co-Productions which, Mallia says, enables the island to join a co-production "with almost anyone in Europe".  The Maltese also have a bi-lateral co-production treaty with Canada, signed in 1997 which, so far, has yielded one project: UK-Malta-Canada co-production A Previous Engagement, directed by Joan Carr-Wiggin.  

Malta was officially listed alongside the UK as a co-production partner on Troy, but this did not necessarily mean the Maltese had any significant financial or creative input on the Warner Brothers epic.  Nor is it clear how Malta can  be a meaningful co-production partner when it does not have an indigenous production sector of its own.

Perhaps because of this, there are drawbacks to shooting in Malta.  As a small island, it cannot provide all materials film-makers need for set construction*.  As one producer puts it: "The big films bring absolutely everything. They also bring all the props".

Local technicians may be skilled in certain areas, but film-makers coming to Malta often prefer to hire their own department heads. There is also a lack of studio space, sound stages and post-production facilities.  The Mediterranean Film Studios are relatively small: often, film-makers are reduced to making their movies in warehouses.  There is little doubt they would stay longer - and invest more - if there were better studio facilities.

"There is huge interest in sound stages but no-one has the guts to build them," says Maltese producer Malcolm Scerri-Ferrante.  After a quiet 2004, private financiers are too uncertain about the long-term future of film production in Malta to take the first step. Nor does the government seem ready to pick up the costs.

For Scerri-Ferrante, there is only one way to put the local industry on a firm footing: set up a film fund that would invest directly in co-productions which benefit Malta. This would guarantee continuity of employment and therefore justify new training incentives and improvements to the film-making infrastructure.

Still, most film-makers who have visited the island recently remain resolutely upbeat.  Tim Goodchild, producer and production designer of Blackbeard, a BBC-backed docudrama about the notorious pirate, was in Malta at the same time of Spielberg's Munich. "The studio and the Maltese people got behind our film," he says. "They're very proud and work very hard.  And they have some very skilled crafts people."

Perhaps surprisingly, Mallia insists that big-budget projects like Munich and The Da Vince Code are not necessarily the only shoots that Malta most needs. "We can be an excellent solution for the independent, low and medium-budget productions," he says, adding that the smaller films often generate more local employment. "Even if the bigger productions get you the lime-light, from an economic and industry point of view, you get more value added from smaller productions."

PROS

Most people speak English

Excellent water tanks at the Mediterranean Film Studios

Skilled local crews

New financial incentives

Location: Close to Rome and North Africa

Versatility: Malta stands in for seven different countries in Steven Spielberg's Munich

CONS

Currency: Malta joined the European Union in 2004 and will be adopting the Euro in 2008, but at present the local currency is still the Maltese Lira

Lack of sound stages, studio space and post-production facilities (something the Maltese authorities are promising to rectify)

Lack of materials for set building, props etc*

No continuity of production

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* Footnote by the Producer's Creative Partnership.

We commend Screen International for a very accurate report.  However we must highlight that the lack of materials on the island is not so much in terms of set construction and props but mainly in technical equipment such as camera, grip and HMIs. Wood is imported in Malta by local suppliers and the main construction material which producers usually find themselves needing to import themselves is scaffolding.  Fortunately this is slowly becoming more abundant on the island.