Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1506448
THERE seems to be quite a lot of interest, all of a sudden, in the 'cash rebate' that Malta so generously offers to foreign film studios, for their use of our island as a filming location. But there also seems to be a little confusion as to what this cash rebate even is, to begin with... and especially, how it is SUPPOSED to work, in prac- tice. [Please note the heavy emphasis there, folks. It will become important later on.] This week, I lost count of the number of reports about the 'shocking' revelation that Mal- ta had paid out almost €140 million, through that scheme – €47 million of which, to only one production: Ridley Scott's 'Gladiator 2'. I won't summarise them all: but here is brief overview of all the objections/misconcep- tions, as they arise from those articles. a) The scheme is 'funded by the tax-payer'; b) It is generally assumed that those €140 million must have come at the expense of budg- etary allocations for other de- partments: including health, education, social services, and so on; c) The cash-rebate only bene- fits massive foreign productions such as 'Gladiator 2', 'Napoleon', 'Jurassic World Dominion', etc. (Indeed, nobody ever mentions the much more modest sums, that foreign producers – most- ly in TV - have been receiving in cash rebates ever since the scheme was introduced, way back in 2000). d) The scheme itself is some- times described in terms of a 'national investment': suggest- ing that it is expected to gen- erate some kind of financial 'return'... and, most bizarrely of all; e) Some people seem to genu- inely think that part of the €47 million that went to 'Gladiator 2', somehow ended up lining the pockets of only one actor: the one who starred in the orig- inal movie, over 20 years ago. (One comment even suggested that: 'Malta paid €47 million, so that [Tourism Minister] Clay- ton Bartolo could have dinner with Russell Crowe!!') OK, tell you what. Let's re- verse through those objections one-by-one, shall we? Starting with: Russell Crowe. Erm... sorry, guys, but: it has evidently es- caped some people's attention, out there, that the New Zea- land-born actor by that name is NOT (I repeat: NOT) actually part of the cast of 'Gladiator 2'. Nor is it even possible that he could have been: given that the character he played in the original was – in case you've all forgotten – 'killed off', at the end of the movie. (And besides: Russell Crowe himself has al- so – no offence, or anything – 'aged' just a little bit, over the last 23 years. So he CANNOT be cast in the sequel, today: no, not even as 'the ghost of Maximus Decimus Meridius', if that's what some of you were hoping...) Even less, then, can he possi- bly claim any part of a 'cash-re- bate', that went to a film which – as he himself put it, in a re- cent outburst – '[he's] not even in!!' So, please: can we stop all this nonsense, once and for all? As for the rest: they can all be very easily rebutted, just by looking at what's written on the tin. The Producers' Crea- tive Partnership website, for instance, describes Malta's cash rebate as: "[...] a cash grant given to eli- gible productions on the qual- ifying expenditure INCURRED IN MALTA [my emphasis]. A minimum of 30% the eligible expenditure can be obtained as a cash rebate by a qualifying production company ONCE FILMING IS COMPLETE [dit- to]. For films which portray Malta as Malta and/or have special Maltese cultural con- tent, the rebate can be as high as 35%. If the Malta Film Studi- os (aka water tanks) forms part of the expenditure then the re- bate can reach 40%." For a more detailed descrip- tion of how it is SUPPOSED to work: this is from the website of law-firm Chetcuti & Chet- cuti: "Once filming is complete and the Malta Film Commis- sion receives the official au- dit report, the cash rebate is provided to the production within five months from the date of receipt of the produc- tion expenditure". Eligible ex- penditure includes, inter alia: "accommodation, transporta- tion equipment and hire, lo- cation fees, catering services, per diems, leasing of offices, computer equipment, props, property, animals, equipment, vehicles, and boats [and many, many more]." Now: from these and other details, we can deduce that: a) The scheme is only 'pub- licly funded', insofar as the money paid out is (inevitably) undersigned by the Maltese tax-payer. But the sum itself is a percentage of money that – SUPPOSEDLY - has already been spent, here in Malta. And this answers two objec- tions, at once. No, the money does not come 'at the expense of other budgetary allocations'; and no, the cash-rebate is not a 'financial investment', in the strictest sense of the word. On the contrary: it is an ex- pense that the Maltese govern- ment – all governments since maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 AUGUST 2023 10 OPINION Malta needs that film rebate. But it needs to be more transparent Raphael Vassallo