November the 21st, 2021 - It's a well known fact that Croatia is of huge interest to filming companies, especially since Game of Thones (GoT) well and truly placed the country on the map after Dubrovnik became known globally as ''King's Landing''. Now, foreign film producers have expressed their desire for a large Rijeka film studio to be constructed.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the real flow of interest in this country in terms of cinema, TV and filming began after the launch of the project "Filming in Croatia" back in 2012 at the initiative of Hrvoje Hribar, who was the head of the Croatian Audiovisual Center (HAVC), and the foundation and goal of this project is to attract foreign investment to based on the services of Croatian filmmakers, as well as based on the many locations that Croatia offers for filming.
Given the geographical position of Croatia and its diverse and stunning landscapes, interesting locations are certainly not lacking for filmmakers. Moreover, by choosing Croatia as the country to shoot a film, series or commercial, in addition to investing in the country, foreign filmmakers with the "Filming in Croatia" programme return 25 percent of the total costs back into the country, which is certainly profitable.
The mayor of Rijeka, Marko Filipovic, explained to Rijeka portal Novi list what is so interesting for foreign filmmakers in this Northern Adriatric city, known for its long industrial past.
''Over more recent years, Rijeka has certainly become extremely interesting to filmmakers, which shows through the large number of feature and documentary films shot in various Rijeka locations, as well as commercials made for many large international companies. In addition, according to the feedback we've been receiving, production companies are very satisfied with the logistical support they receive in Rijeka and in the Rijeka area from the city administration and other institutions with which they cooperate, not to mention the Kvarner Film Commission.
This sort of interest has recently been expressed by Czech production company that already has film studios, to develop a project to build a large Rijeka film studio with a number of accompanying public and educational content in the city. The company was presented with some sites and locations across Rijeka which have the potential to see a Rijeka film studio develop,'' added Mayor Filipovic, before pointing out that the reasons for choosing Rijeka are the fact that the city has a wide variety of localities and exteriors that can meet the needs of filmmakers from Central European architecture and a Mediterranean ambience to industrial heritage.
''In addition, as a comparative advantage of Rijeka, its exceptionally good position and transport connections by air, land and sea, as well as possible cooperation with programmes and studies of the University of Rijeka in the field of film art, art, design and the like, also go hand in hand with this,'' concluded the Mayor of Rijeka.
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