Screen International

July 2nd, 2009

 

Excerpt from Will cheap deals tempt the bargain hunters?

 

HUNGARY

 

Budapest is bouncing back after a year when the value of international production plummeted to $23.4m (huf4.8bn)from $86.1m (huf17.7bn) in 2007.

 

Producers are drawn to Hungary by a better-than-ever tax incentive and high production values

 

Atlas Entertainment received a SAG waiver for the $20m period fantasy thriller Season Of The Witch, which allowed it to shoot with Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman through the winter of 2008 in Hungary and Austria. Miramax and MARV Films' The Debt shot in Budapest for several weeks this spring.

 

Further productions expected this year include Plum Pictures' The Whistleblower, Good Films' The Great Ghost Rescue and Focus Features' The Eagle Of The Ninth.

 

Producers are drawn to Hungary by a better-than-ever tax incentive and high production values.

"We looked at how to mount this picture and how to get the most value on the screen," says Alex Gartner, the US producer of Season Of The Witch.

 

"Hungary suits our purposes for two reasons - one is aesthetic and the other is financial," 

               Duncan Kenworthy, producer (UK)

 

London-based producer Duncan Kenworthy has chosen Hungary for portions of Focus Features' Roman legion story, The Eagle Of The Ninth. Directed by Kevin Macdonald, the film will shoot for four to five weeks in Hungary from the end of August.

 

Two-thirds of the film is set in Scotland, where the film will shoot - and access the UK tax credit - while Hungary stands in for 2nd century England.

 

The producer found undeveloped countryside within 40 minutes of Budapest, and inexpensive extras for a large battle scene.

 

Kenworthy scouted Romania and spoke to producers who had shot in the Balkans, before deciding on Hungary. "It suits our purposes for two reasons - one is aesthetic and the other is financial," Kenworthy says. "The tax credit helps it considerably, but it wouldn't have been enough. Aesthetics have to come first or equal first, in the sense that if the rebate wasn't there, we might have cast our eye further afield."

 

Unlike incentives in the UK and Germany, the Hungarian rebate can now be applied to expenses incurred outside the territory. A change to the Hungarian tax law allows for a rebate of 20% of production spend outside Hungary, provided the invoice is issued by a taxable Hungarian entity, such as a production company.

 

Season Of The Witch applied the rebate to the Austrian portions of its shoot. "Hungarian crew, per diems, equipment you've rented in Hungary and are using elsewhere - all those apply to the Hungarian spend. The only thing that doesn't apply is hotels and things like that," Gartner says.