What makes the incentive scheme we have today insufficiently competitive, nationally and internationally?
A well-functioning incentive scheme should genuinely stimulate economic activity, allowing film projects with qualified and documented spending to factor in reimbursed funds from the incentive scheme after production has wrapped. Today, this is a common and crucial film financing mechanism globally.
Film production is costly and involves long planning horizons. International film and TV production is a global competition for investments, jobs, and tax revenues. Because our scheme operates with a limited funding cap and has only one application deadline per year, it is unpredictable in both timing and available funding. Film projects have no guarantee of receiving reimbursement from the scheme, even if they meet all eligibility criteria. In practice, it cannot be relied upon.
As a result, productions are forced to choose other countries with stronger and more predictable incentives. This means we not only lose foreign productions that could have been based in Norway — we also see Norwegian productions moving abroad. Along with them go Norwegian jobs, investments, value creation, and business opportunities.
The consequence is lost activity and expertise, as well as reduced tax revenues and weakened value creation in Norway. Strengthening the film incentive scheme is therefore a choice between attracting investments and revenues back home — or allowing them to contribute to other countries’ GDP.