Serbia boosts its filming incentive support

Serbian authorities decided to boost investment after total production spending in the country rose from €20.8m in 2016 to just under €32m last year, according to the ministry of economy.

“Figures from the previous period show that incentives have attracted 9,6 EUR of production for every euro paid in incentives and created over 2,000 project jobs in first 16 months of implementation,” said Ana Ilic, Serbia’s former film commissioner who now advises the prime minister on the digital and creative industries.

“Feature film production alone increased over [the] previous year total productions by 54%. This is a significant boost to the local economy and we are proud of the fact that Serbian incentives are not only supporting feature films and television but are open with opportunities to projects [for] post-production, TV commercials and even VR (virtual reality) works.”

Serbia remains best known internationally for its visual effects work. Crater Studio has worked on the 2015 remake of Point Break as well as Blake Lively’s shark movie The Shallows that shot in Australia.

The November Man, starring Pierce Brosnan, used Belgrade for location filming in 2014, whle Ralph Fiennes’ 2011 movie adaptation of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus is among the highest-profile international films to shoot in in the capital.

Serbia’s main regional production rivals are Hungary, which offers first-class studio facilities, and Croatia, which remains extremely popular for its historical architecture.