Budget cuts to the NFI could result in fewer film and TV dramas in the mid-term warns NFI’s Stine Helgeland. 

Norway’s recently announced State Budget for 2017 brought good and bad news to the local film and TV industry.

The good news is that the budget for film incentives will increase by 24%, from NOK45m to NOK56m (around €6.2m) in 2017. This decision comes as the filming scheme with its 25% rebate to foreign shoots introduced a year ago, has proved very successful. So far two mega productions were supported - Thomas Alfredson’s The Snowman and Alexander Payne’s Downsizing - and their investment in Norway resulted in a local spent of around $24m according to an analysis by Olsberg SPI Consultancy. 

Commenting on the government’s push to attract foreign shoots, Stine Helgeland, Executive Director at the Norwegian Film Institute said: “This [increase] signals a real desire from the government to make this scheme competitive and effective, and that is important in order to attract high profile films and series to film in Norway."

Regional film activity will also be boosted with an extra NOK 4 million to create a new regional film centre in Oslo. 

However national film and TV production will be hit by a slight cut to the NFI overall budget. NFI will benefit from an increase of NOK 9.43m but TV2 will no longer be required to contribute its annual NOK 11.09m to the NFI budget.

This will therefore induce a NOK1.6m loss, and as another NOK1.4m will be tied up in new allocations, overall production and dissemination grants will end up with a NOK3m cut according to the Institute. 

“This will have a real impact on the production volume of Norwegian films and series over time, especially when you see it against the dramatic change in the market over the past few years and the decrease in revenues from secondary markets such as DVD and television” said Helgeland. “It is urgent to come up with agreements or regulations that will secure financing from ancillary platforms into the audio-visual sector in Norway” she added.