Vienna sets up €2m fund to entice international productions

The city of Vienna has launched a €2m fund for international filmmakers in a bid to attract film and TV productions.

The initiative is designed to boost the city's tourism and local economies following research from the Brussels-based online market company, TCI that found one in 10 visitors were inspired to visit Vienna because of a film.

The Vienna Film Incentive will help filmmakers fund foreign productions shooting in the city for at least two days. 

In 2021, Vienna hosted approximately 80 international productions, with Netflix spending more than €5m filming Extraction 2  in the city, as well as Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation injecting €3.5m into Austria's local economy.

“The Vienna Film Incentive is a contemporary funding instrument. By extending the scope of funding to formats produced for streaming providers, it reflects the latest developments in the filmmaking industry,” said executive city councillor of finance, business, labour, international affairs and Vienna public utilities, Peter Hanke.

“This funding scheme should be seen as a source of assistance with ties to the tourism industry. It is intended to benefit Vienna’s visitor economy – both from a business and tourism perspective.

Norbert Kettner, director of the Vienna Tourist Board, added: “Film images have been an integral part of the image building toolkit for every destination ever since moving pictures were first shown to an audience in 1895. And now this new source of funding is helping to expand our portfolio. In addition to conventional international marketing communication activities, we are now in a position to instrumentalise film funding as a way to raise awareness among prospective visitors.”