According to the latest report released by the Lithuanian Film Centre (LFC), 2020 was an extremely successful and record-breaking year for the Film Tax Incentive, in terms of both investments by companies and the projects that benefited from it. Introduced in 2014, the incentive aimed to create favourable conditions for film and series production, and any company operating in Lithuania can take advantage of it. In practice, when a company donates funds to film producers, this reduces the amount of taxed income and profit tax paid.

In its seventh year of implementation, 58 film and series projects – 37 domestic productions, nine co-productions and 12 foreign productions – took advantage of the Film Tax Incentive, receiving €11.3 million for production, while international producers spent almost €27 million in Lithuania. It’s worth noting that this is an increase of around 80% compared to the previous year, when foreign production expenditure was close to €15 million (see the news).

It is clear that the position of Lithuania as a destination for international film production has been further strengthened, based on these results. The Film Tax Incentive continues to attract more projects, with most of the international ones – eight out of 12 in total – coming from Scandinavian countries. In fact, most of the investments in 2020 were received by two Swedish crime series: With One Eye Open, directed by Lisa Farzaneh and Jesper Westerling Nielsen, with production duties in Lithuania being handled by UAB Paprika Filmai, which received €1.4 million; and The Truth Will Out, directed by Kristian Petri and Daniel di Grado, with UAB Ahil providing production services. The firm secured €1.1 million.

The incentive is also becoming more popular for domestic film productions. Since 2014, when the scheme was implemented, local companies have received €5.9 million in investments, €2.5 million of which were received last year alone. Also, the number of investors who have benefited has risen over the past two years. This could be linked to both the increase in the incentive to 30% since 2019 – having stood at 20% previously – and the pandemic-related measures that have forced companies to seek more ways to secure their finances.

Summing up the results achieved since the first year of implementation, so far 200 Lithuanian companies have invested in film production, and a total of €35.6 million worth of investment has been made. Last year, 25% of all investors, or 49 companies, were attracted to the incentive for the first time. It has funded a total of 215 films – 104 Lithuanian projects, 58 foreign productions and 53 co-productions – over the past eight years. The results can be found on the LFC’s website (please click here).