January 28, 2019

The introduction of 25% cash rebate for film has been crucial game change of the decade for Serbian film industry. The programme has benefited over 100 projects since the launch in 2016 and it success is continuing with Serbian Government determination to support creative industries.

Since 65 projects benefitted from Serbian cash rebate programme in 2018, almost double the number to 2017, the Ministry of Economy has decided to continue incentivising projects in the upcoming year with additional 100 million RSD. This makes the total budget available in 2019 go up to €7,5 million ($8,6 million). Simultaneously the increase in the national funding for domestic and co-productions under the Ministry of Culture and Film Center Serbia to €9 million, represents significant investment in two very strong mechanisms for the film production and audiovisual sector in Serbia.

The extremely active year has seen the total of 11 feature films including “The White Crow” directed by Ralph Fiennes, “Anna” by Luc Besson and “Intrigo: Death of an Autor” by Daniel Alfredson, creator of Millennium Trilogy. The numbers show that total value of production spend in Serbia due to incentives amounts to €35,3 million.

Serbia is also one of handful countries in the world to offer cash rebate to advertising and special purpose projects. In previous year it was applied to 40 projects. Those that top the value are campaigns for X-BOX Game Pass and Penny retail chain which demonstrated strong creative and production support by Serbian advertising and service companies.

Due to the no visa regime introduced for India and China, Serbia is being rediscovered by these two big markets. “Belgrade Escape” was the first Chinese feature to benefit from incentives and returning Indian productions that shot 3 films including award-winning director Mani Ratnam, “Crimson Red Sky” and rising star Vicky Kaushal in “URI: Surgical Strike”. All mayor film centers in Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore experienced shooting in Serbia with over 100 shooting days in the past 12 months.

Locations juiced up with local talents and growing film infrastructure, Serbia has demonstrated the ability to double the face of almost every European capital city through its many incarnations on screen. Globally, filmmakers are showing interest in brutalist, dystopian locations like the New Belgrade. The (in)famous “blocks” are inevitable checkpoint on any filmmakers scouting list. And for whatever you can’t find in real locations Serbian production designers are ready to build in studio or digitally create in the well-established visual effects and CG industry.

With announcements of € 50 million investment in Avala Studios Serbia is making its way to more competitive infrastructure and services to other countries in Balkans and Southern Europe.

Serbia Film Commission continues to follow its mission, for further questions how to access incentives meet us at the upcoming Berlin Film Festival.

January 24, 2019

Indian blockbuster “URI: The Surgical Strike“ is on the run for smashing the box office in the opening of 2019, having earned $ 15,000,000 in India, in only seven days after the premiere on January 11th, while at the same time ticket sales in cinemas in America, Canada and Australia have reached about $ 2 million. 

This will be one of the most successful projects produced by “RSVP Movies”, owned by Ronnie Screwala and shot in partnership with Clockwork Film Production in Serbia, during July and August 2018. Shooting lasted for 41 day, with more than 300 crew members and about 700 extras from every part of Serbia. URI is debut film of talented director Aditya Dhar, who also penned the script inspired by the real military event from September 2016 when the Indian soldiers in the URI base in Kashmir experienced a terrorist attack by Pakistani extremists and had 19 Indian soldiers killed.

Numerous attractive locations throughout the country and most specifically Old Mountain (Stara Planina) deserve the nickname “Serbian Kashmir”, since the director, originally born in Kashmir, was quite surprised by the incredible similarity of Serbian, still not so touristy explored mountain, and the famous Indian region. This was the second time Indian film productions used slopes of Old Mountain for Kashmir.

Production of this film demanded enormous effort regarding production design, stunts and SFX. The production designers once again confirmed their talent and professionalism. Sets made throughout Serbia managed to represent URI bases in Kashmir, Myanmar as the backdrop for Pakistani terrorist bases. This would be impossible without great support of local government and institutions to the film crew. Clockwork Film Production owes its greatest gratitude to the Army of Serbia and the Ministry of Defense, which once again demonstrated its expertise and readiness to cooperate with foreign film producers at any time. This is the third foreign film that was filmed at Batajnica military airport, and one of the locations of this film include the military barracks “General Pavle Jurišić Šturm”, in Požarevac, where the production team spent 15 days.

The cast, warmly welcomed by critics, lead Vicky Kaushal, Yami Gautam, Kirthi Kulhari, Paresh Rawal and Mohit Raina. While shooting URI, Clockwork Production hosted the most diverse acting and stuntmen crew from Thailand, Indochina, the Netherlands, France, Malaysia, Sri Lanka that made the working experience truly global.

January 23, 2019

Belgrade locations have been incarnated as Paris, Moscow, Rome, Barcelona, Baltimore, Stockholm among many other cities through hundreds of commercials and features. In collaboration between German Serviceplan, Tony Petersen Film and Serbian Emote the new commercial for German retail chain Penny brings a new very organic and highly inspiring face of Serbian Capital.

Campaign aims to raise awareness of organic products and features stunning set design works in combination with CG and VFX done by Liga01 / Sehsucht. The chant song of the video is led by German queen of pop Nena who’s visit to Serbian capital draw attention of small number of paparazzi.

Four days of shooting included the very heart of Belgrade downtown, famous New Belgrade “blocks” ending in the final scene of lavishly green train bridge over Sava river. Director Martin Aamund and DoP Julian Hohndorf with sort of a trademark in shooting massive scenes, inhabited over 400 extras in the main scene making it over one thousand extras in the entire project. The number of people in all departments spanned between 150-200 on each day which is a rare case for a TVC and there were doubts that Belgrade can pull it off, but Emote did it.

“This was the most ambitious project that we have ever completed in the city downtown due to the fact that a lot of greenery you see is real set dressing. The main kudos for this go to production designer Tommy Stark and local production designer Sanela Spajić and their mutual team. Liga 01 /Sehsucht than added some of CG magic in the establishing shots, inspiring us to see Belgrade in the new eyes”, says Marija Marković who line produced TVC on behalf of Emote Belgrade.

This is one of the more than 50 TVC that has benefited from 25 % Cash Rebate.

The abundant scenery and number of details in this TVC is such that we only hope to see more spin offs and inside stories. In the meantime enjoy the full video and behind the scenes gallery.

Agency:  Serviceplan Campaign

Client: PENNY

Production: Tony Petersen Film GmbH

Exec. Producer: Volker Steinmetz

Director: Martin Aamund

DoP: Julian Hohndorf

Director of Sound: Thomas Martin

Audio Production:  Jesper Gadeberg / Sizzer

Post Production / VFX: Liga01 / Sehsucht

Service Production: Emote

Exec. Producer SRB: Bogdan Petković

Line producer SRB: Marija Marković

Production Designer SRB: Sanela Spajić

Location Manager: Kristina Marković

October 22, 2018

Serbian Employment Agency has recognized the need for hiring more people in film industry due to increasing number of shootings in Serbia. That was the reason why it has included in its training catalog courses for scene, camera and lighting technicians, film accountants and VFX generalists. All these courses are intended to unemployed people, as initial training program for future specialization in the field of VFX production, animation and 3D computer generated images.

Serbia Film Commission, together with Mokra Gora School of Management, Crater VFX Training Center, Crowe RS and rental houses, organizes those courses in order to provide not only trainings, but recommendations for employment, aiming to enlarge number of film crews in Serbia.

Trainings are for free and designed for unemployed people registered in Employment Agency. They will last 3 months, and to attend them you need to apply at your employment advisers in municipal branches of Employment Agency. 

Visit Employment Agency website to find more information about this training program. 

Application deadline and info day when candidates will meet-up is scheduled for October 24th in Belgrade branch of Employment Agency (Gundulićev venac 22-24).

***NEW INFO DAY for training for scene, camera and lighting technicians is scheduled for November 6th, in Belgrade branch (Gundulićev venac 22-24).

List of Employment Agency branches find on link. 

October 21, 2018

Serbia Film Commission in synergy with Crater VFX Training Center and VFX Serbia portal, is hosting for the second time CGA Belgrade Conference on November 16th and 17th, 2018, dedicated to computer graphics and digital arts to which success community of over 12 studios of SFC members is contributing. Yugoslav Film Archive will serve as home of the gathering some of the most important world names from the industry of visual effects, animation, gaming and digital art, which makes event unique in the region, with ambitions to become a permanent platform for networking between artists, studios, producers and everyone interested in computer generated imagery.

After first CGA Belgrade Conference in 2017 attracted more than five hundred visitors for the second edition, we prepared even more programme tracks and content through the most interesting interaction of film, gaming and IT industry. The main program of the conference over the two days will include more than fifteen lectures, panels and presentations equally interesting to professionals, students, and those who are considering redirecting their career into the computer graphics industry.

The biggest star of this CGA Belgrade conference will be Mike Seymour, founder of VFX Guide and ambassador of technological development of computer animation, whose online platform was the starting point for generations of artists around the world. Designing the look and some of the scenes in Blade Runner 2049 movie will be presented by Shahin Toosi, while Victor Perez will talk about how the experience he gained on film series such as “Star Wars” and “Harry Potter” can be applied on projects with a much smaller budget. Alongside a number of foreign lecturers from the academic and professional CG world, a number of successful Serbian studios and freelance artists will present projects realized in cooperation with international clients and partners in film, advertising, and gaming industry.

Virtual reality fans will be able to get into the experiences created by digital artists and production studios and directly in the virtual environment to walk through the largest domestic VFX studios. In addition to this, the CGA Belgrade Conference this year opens the opportunity for meeting recruiters from Framestore, Pixomondo and Cinesite, who will be introduced to local talents in Belgrade and exchange ideas on the projects they are currently working on, as well as on the possibilities for potential cooperation.

Together with the main program of CGA Belgrade, two workshops will be held: VFX Production Management Workshop  dedicated to producers in VFX led by Andrew Brasington from the London based Escape Studios. After the conference Film Skills Academy fifth workshop dedicated to the training of Maya Technical Directors will take place November 19-23rd, focusing on scripting ​​and architecture of Maya software under the hood led by Serguei Kalentchouk.

The Conference is announced by the teaser video “Awakening”, whose original idea and creation was a joint project over 14 studios of SFC members.

Organization of the Conference was supported in partnership with the leading global companies: Autodesk, Foundry, Chaos Group, 3 Lateral and Epic Games as diamond partner. The conference received institutional support from the Austrian Cultural Forum, the Embassy of Canada in Belgrade and the Spanish Cultural Promotion Agency, as well as the support of the Government of the Republic of Serbia within the Program for Business Capacity Building in the IT sector, which is being implemented in cooperation with UNDP. CGA Belgrade is being held under the patronage of the Office of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia, in cooperation with its Creative Industries Council, and within the framework of the Serbia Creates Platform, which aims to represent Serbian talents, innovation and digital community. 

https://vimeo.com/295867022 

October 15, 2018

Over the last few years, Serbia increased its efforts in supporting the film industry and encouraging foreign productions to shoot in Serbia.  Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the Serbian Government doubled the budget for investment in the film industry in Serbia at the beginning of 2018 by introducing the Decree on Incentivizing Investments in the Production of Audio-Visual Works.  In this respect, the most noteworthy change is the improvement in the position of foreign actors and production crew members who are engaged for production of audio-visual work in Serbia.

As a general rule of thumb, foreigners who are members of production crews or actors’ groups no longer have to obtain work permits in order to shoot in Serbia.  However, if the filming period is longer than 90 days, foreigners will have to obtain a permit for temporary residence in Serbia.  This is a significant improvement as the procedure of obtaining a temporary residence permit in Serbia is less complex and more streamlined than the procedure of obtaining a work permit.

On the other hand despite the latest changes of the Foreigners Act and bylaws related to obtaining temporary residence permit, not much has changed, in addition to the general formal requirements, foreign production crew members and actors have to satisfy an additional prerequisite as to obtain a temporary residence permit.  Our practice has proven that in most cases they have to prove that they are members of a production crew and/or actors’ group – this is typically satisfied by providing an executed agreement with the producer of an audio-visual work and that they are seconded to Serbia to produce the audio-visual work, but Serbian Ministry of Interior, Foreigners Department authorities may require additional documents if the provided agreement does not suffice.

The procedure of obtaining a temporary residence permit usually lasts up to 4 weeks whereas the residence permits are issued for a period of up to one year.  If the filming lasts longer than a year, the validity of residence permit may be prolonged by an additional year and so on.

The significant decrease in administrative requirements regarding foreign production crew members, coupled with other incentives in Serbia, give rise to the idea that Serbia will become an even more attractive international filming destination.

This text is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. Should you require any additional information, feel free to contact our memebers:

 Marija Oreški Tomašević, Partner

SOG / Samardžić, Oreški & Grbović Law Firm
marija.oreski@sog.rs

Nevena Milošević, Associate

SOG / Samardžić, Oreški & Grbović Law Firm
nevena.milosevic@sog.rs