11-11-2011

Estonia Funds Film Commission

By Martin Aadamsoo

    TALLiNN:Enterprise Estonia, the country's enterprise and export support agency, will finance the launch of an Estonian film commission. The initial investment in setup and operational costs for the first 3 years will amount to 609,000 EUR, with an additional 261,000 EUR required as collateral funding from the commission and its partners.

    The Film Commission is an initiative of 12 Estonian production companies, the national film agency Estonian Film Foundation, the Black Nights Film Festival, and the Baltic Event co-production platform. It is launched under the aegis of the Estonian Digital Centre, an NGO focussing on the professional development of Estonia's audiovisual industry. The initiative is expected to be partly co-funded by the City of Tallinn.

    The Film Commission is to promote Estonia as a destination for film shoots and other audiovisual content production. Also in the pipeline are efforts to set up regional and country-wide financial incentives for incoming productions.

    The Film Commission's stated ambition is to turn Estonia into the Baltic Sea region's leading audiovisual content production service provider by 2020, no small target given Estonia's current scarcity of production infrastructure.