Lithuania hands out over €15m to filmmakers from local tax credit in 2021

Lithuania had a record year with more than €15m received by filmmakers from the Lithuanian Film Tax Incentive in 2021, according to the Lithuanian Film Centre.

The figure is 26% more than the 2020 results, with an impressive €37.9m spent by international filmmakers. It marks the highest sum received through the incentive since it came into force in 2014.

A total of 71 new films shot in Lithuania in 2021 took advantage of the incentive, of which 40 were domestic, 19 foreign productions and 12 co-productions.

Among the 19 foreign projects working in Lithuania were 10 Scandinavian region film projects - five Swedish and five Norwegian. Another three projects were from the UK, and the rest were from Germany, Estonia, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia.

Swedish film projects received the most investment, with the filming of the second season of Netflix's Young Wallander receiving €1.61m, Per-Olav Sørensen's mini-series The Playlist received €1.60m, and Lasse Hallström's Hilma af Klint secured €1.36m. 

The Lithuanian Film Centre said: "In 2021 a total of 126 investment certificates were issued to 78 investors, of those 28 Lithuanian companies were taking advantage of the Film Tax Incentive for the first time, the rest were repeat investors. This shows that businesses trust in the Incentive is increasing, the operation of the Incentive is understood and thus businesses commit to invest even larger sums."

Other big projects to shoot in the country in 2021 include UK outfit Camelot Films' Prize Fighter: The Life of Jem Belcher, Netflix's hit show Stranger Things and six-part Swedish crime drama Clark, and Nordic Entertainment Group's Max Anger, co-produced by UK outfit Twelve Town. 

From 2014 to 2021, €50.7m was invested into the filmmaking industry, with international filmmakers spending more than €140m in the country, of which a quarter of the expenses were received in 2021 alone.