Malta and the Film industry : a study in how legislative amendments could help attract future productions

Abstract

As more countries come to terms with the money the film industry generates, governments are going out of their way to be part of this phenomenal growth by offering various cost effective film production regimes backed up by a strong legal framework. Moreover, the film industry’s needs are evolving at a faster rate than its regularisation locally, thus exposing the archaic state of Malta’s current legislation. This thesis explores the multi-faceted world of the film industry requirements and comprehensively discusses the issue of how to attract future productions from various angles. With financial incentives and rebates being two of the main issues concerning the film industry, this thesis widely discusses the range of schemes offered by foreign film production hubs as well as Malta, particularly in the light of the recently launched incentives that are currently subject to State Aid approval. Furthermore, arguments in favour and against the promotion of this class of incentives are presented. This thesis also argues that a film infrastructure is essential in order to have a complete film industry. Therefore a number of tangible and non-tangible factors, making up the film infrastructure are analysed and a number of proposals put forward, with the ultimate aim of opening exiting avenues for further progress and growth within the local film servicing sector. As every other industry, the film business requires professional personnel. Unfortunately, Malta has a problem providing enough crews in terms of quantity and first–class expertise to sustain even the normal levels of productions visiting the island. It may be thought that the answer to this issue is to provide training courses. This thesis discusses this at length and in light of general employment law that together with such courses, it is imperative that appropriate legislation is created to better protect film crew rights.