Round Table "Capital of Ukraine – Capital of Filming"

Round Table "Capital of Ukraine – Capital of Filming: New Opportunities and Prospects of Kyiv Cinematography"

On September 22, KYIV MEDIA WEEK and Motion Picture Association of Ukraine with the participation of Kyiv City State Administration organized a round table discussion dedicated to the establishing of Kyiv Film Commission. The event took place in the Column Hall of Kyiv City State Administration.

Målselv is a municipality in Troms county, Norway. Since 2005, about 50 feature films and TV series have been produced there, with a total budget of around € 50 million, € 18 million of which were spent in the same region. In that context, Kyiv – million city and capital of the state – is still envious to provincial Norwegian region with a population of less than 7 thousand people.

What was the reason of this ‘film miracle’ in Målselv? The activity of regional film fund FilmCamp: with an active support of municipality administration, at the premises of the former military base a film production complex was created. Today it offers a wide range of services of development and production of film and TV projects. At the moment, ‘imports’ of money to the region exceeds the investment from local authorities by 4 times.

The operation of so-called regional film funds is widespread in Europe. These are the organizations of film producers, local authorities, businesses and the public in order to make the region more attractive for film production.

It involves a whole range of activities, including mandatory founding of film commission – one and the only entry point to the city, which provides assistance in the organization of anything connected with the filming in the area.

Lviv Film Commission has been already established and operates in Ukraine. Round table "New opportunities and prospects of Kyiv as a cinema capital of Ukraine", organized by KYIV MEDIA WEEK and Motion Picture Association of Ukraine with the participation of Kyiv City State Administration, is aimed to facilitate the foundation of a similar organization in Ukrainian capital.

Participants of the round table, including the mayor of Kyiv city Vitali Klitschko, found out more about the current situation of shooting process organization in the capital and discussed the prospects and ways to improve it.

The key objective of the event is to unite and coordinate media industry and city authorities in their quest to make Kyiv an attractive filming location, which is beneficial for business and the city: both from financial and image-building point of view.

The round table included a presentation of local film commissions’ activity in different European countries. In particular, Svein Andersen from abovementioned Norwegian FilmCamp, as well as his colleague Dariusz Nosal from Krakow Film Commission (Poland) shared their personal experience in this issue.

First of all, the establishing of Kyiv Film Commission intends to create the very entry point to the capital, which simplifies the paperwork procedures for film crews and thus makes Kyiv an attractive location for content creators.

In the long term – after the adoption of the draft law ‘On the State Support of the Cinematography in Ukraine’ #3081-d – Kyiv Film Commission will also facilitate cash rebate system implementation at the regional level.

Kyiv authorities of all levels, film professionals, journalists, activists, representatives of HoReCa and related businesses, as well as the guests from other Ukrainian regions were invited to attend the event.

The round table took place on September 22 in the Column Hall of Kyiv City State Administration (36 Khreschatyk St., Kyiv, Ukraine).