At a time when California is looking up its tax credits to $750M annually, there’s some serious competition from across the pond, and that’s Ireland.
The An Taoiseach of Ireland/Prime Minister of Ireland Michael Martin was here in Austin, TX on Monday along with Cinetic CEO John Sloss, The Astronaut filmmaker Jess Varley, and Irish producer Tristan Orden Lynch to share the great experience of not only shooting in the country of leas and cliffs, but also the extremely competitive tax credit.
Sloss recently produced the Richard Linklater Berlin premiere, Blue Moon, over in Ireland, in addition to Varley with her SXSW world premiere The Astroanaut, and Lynch with his drama series Mix Tape.
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Currently the Irish tax incentive for the screen industries, Section 481, provides a tax credit of up to 32% on eligible Irish expenditures based on 80% of a pic’s budget. That will soon rise to 40% for productions under 20 million Euros. Sure, a 32% tax credit is competitive with Canada and some other countries, but here’s the mega-plus: The credit pays out 90% upfront to a film or TV series’ budget.
“I don’t think that happens anywhere else in the world,” said Lynch at the SXSW session “Through the Green Lens” held at the Ireland House aka Marlowe’s in Austin, TX.
Figure that tax credits, say in New York, can take three to four years to come back to a production. The final 10% comes back to a production shot or in post in Ireland after the pic is delivered.
Sloss, whose Blue Moon was shot largely on sound stage replicating Sardi’s in the day of a life of Rogers and Hart on March 31, 1943, says that when tax credits aren’t guaranteed it “becomes expensive to borrow against” not to mention the tax credit in that instance “becomes gap financing if it’s not guaranteed.”
“Getting that 90% was absolutely essential,” emphasizes Sloss about the upside to shooting in Ireland for their current 32% tax credit.
Sony Pictures Classics bought out the world on the Linklater movie which stars Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, and Andrew Scott. All of the heads of department used on Blue Moon, not to mention Scott is of Irish descent, hence Blue Moon “passed the cultural test” per Sloss.
Sloss originally shot in Ireland very early on in his indie finance career back in 1993 with the John Sayles feature, The Secret of Roan Inish.
Another plus according to Lynch to shooting in Ireland is that it automatically qualifies a production as European, thus incentivizing European distribution and broadcast companies to vie for rights on the project. “Your value in the marketplace goes up,” says Lynch whose Mix Tape about young lovers finding themselves in middle age, was shot in Ireland as well as Australia.
Varley’s The Astronaut takes place in Virigina, outside of DC. Again, the Irish tax credit stretched dollars in a way that shooting stateside would not. The national forest in Ireland doubled great for Virgina and creating the isolation environment she was looking for in the Kate Mara-Laurence Fishburne thriller. Varley put The Astronaut through the colorization post-process in Ireland. She found the crew to be quite efficient and creative. When she was looking to shoot a space capsule in the ocean in Bray harbor, her Irish production designers came up with a third built craft out of Styrofoam. Varley’s producer on the pic, Brad Fuller, had such a great experience shooting in Ireland, he decided to shoot the Christopher Landon directed Blumhouse title, Drop, there.
In total there were six projects playing at SXSW which were shot in Ireland: The Drop, The Astronaut, Mix Tape, the Nicolas Cage movie The Surfer, the thriller Hallow Road, and the animation short, Retirement Plan.
Screen Ireland, the national agency for Irish film, TV, docs, and animation, reports that between 2021 – 2024, the org supported over 12,000 skills development placements and invested over €120 million into the Irish screen industry. Also during that time, Screen Ireland was behind the production of over 116 feature films, 64 TV series and 120 short films.