03-04-2014

Vilnius Meeting Point Draws Industry to Lithuania

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    VILNIUS: The fifth edition of the Vilnius IFF industry sidebar Meeting Point Vilnius presented 22 Baltic films and works in progress to an audience of 150 international guests.

    The films included 16 Lithuanian documentary and feature films, three Estonian films, and three Latvian films.

    Rolandas Kvietkauskas, director of the Lithuanian Film Centre, said that 117 projects have already applied for support in 2014, far surpassing the total of 87 projects in 2013. The centre's budget has been increased from 1.7 m EUR in 2013 to 2.1 m EUR in 2014.

    The centre plans to support six national films including four majority coproductions; nine documentaries; five animated films; three minority coproductions (with Latvia, Finland and Norway); and 17 projects in development.

    Tax incentives of up to 20% rebates on local spend, introduced in January, have already attracted three projects from Lithuania, Finland and Russia and discussions are underway with producers from the UK, Japan, Germany and Spain.

    Cinema admissions reached 3.2 million in 2013, with domestic productions accounting for 16% of admissions, an increase of 2.5% over 2012. Three local films were among the top 10 box office hits and box office was 13 m EUR. Lithuania's biggest ever box office film, the mostly English language gangster comedy, Redirected, released in January, has taken more than 1.2 m EUR in box office and nearly 290,000 admissions.