27/03/2006

Official UK co-productions made within bilateral UK co-production agreements or the European Co-production Convention dropped by 28% in 2005 from 86 films in 2004 to 62 films. According to the latest Research and Statistics Bulletin published by the UK Film Council, this significant decrease was due mainly to tighter certification rules from the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and uncertainties over future tax incentives for film.

2005 co-productions included The Queen, directed by Stephen Frears, Love and Other Disasters by Alek Keshishian, The Last King of Scotland by Kevin Macdonald and Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ken Loach
interview: Rebecca O’Brien
film profile].

Financing uncertainties also affected the value of UK co-productions, which fell from £145.6m (€211m) in 2004 to £90.5m (€131.2m) in 2005, as well as inward investments (mostly from the US), which dropped from £476.9m (€692m) in 2004 to £240.8m (€349.4m) in 2005, also influenced by a weak dollar and increased location competition from other countries.

However, this downward tendency was counterbalanced by a significant increase in the number and value of domestic productions: 37 films worth £166.3m (€241m) in 2005, as opposed to 27 worth £117.8m (€170.8m) the previous year. Larger budget titles such as Geoffrey Sax’s €33.2m (€48m) family film Stormbreaker or Danny Boyle’s €12.4m (€17.9m) sci-fi film Sunshine [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: AndrewMacdonald
interview: Danny Boyle
film profile] contributed to this upward trend. The majority of official UK co-productions (44 out of 62) were in the budget range of £2m (€2.9m) to10m (€14.5m).

In terms of UK co-productions by location country, the most frequent locations were the UK, with 15 films shot there in 2005, followed by Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania and Spain (6 films each), Ireland (5), Hungary (4), Belgium and the Netherlands (3 each), Austria, Canada, the Isle of Man, Sweden and the US (2 each).

Reflecting the efforts that were made last year to balance the number of majority Canadian and French co-productions against majority UK co-productions with those countries, fewer shoots took place in Canada in 2005 (2 with respect to 5 in 2004) and in France (0 in 2005 as compared with 8 in 2004).