Thursday, 16 May 2013

Latvia’s Riga Film Fund Spreads the Love/Lati


The Riga Film Fund in Latvia, the only Baltic country to offer production support to international projects, has awarded Lati 313,547 ($582,000) to six international co-productions.
The fund offers cash rebates for up to 20% of the local production spend for films lensing in Latvia’s capital, Riga, with local partners.
Among projects receiving coin are “Ded _005,” which partners Latvia’s Ego Media with Russia’s Cine Pro; “Death Penalty,” teaming Latvia’s Sun & Moon Pictures and the U.K.’s Happy Hour Prods.; “Laureate,” linking Sun & Moon with U.K.’s Deya Prods.; “For Mum” from Latvia’s Telekompanija Forma Pro and Russia’s Trogir Prodakan; “Honestly,” from Latvia’s Boheme Intl. and Russia’s Amalgama Prods. and “Inheritance,” from Boheme and Russia’s Ivan Prods.
The fund has given coin to nine films since its launch in 2010, which have brought $5.8 million in production spending to the country.
Asian projects have been among those going to Latvia, including two each from Korea and Japan, and one from India. The most recent was Korean spy thriller “The Berlin File” by Ryoo Seung-wan, with Riga locations standing in for Berlin.
Riga Film Fund’s project manager, Dace Lesinska, said that the range of films is expanding. “In previous years, most of the applications were for historical or WWII films, since some of our locations are untouched and evoke that period. However, lately this trend is expanding into different genres, such as contemporary action films, Bollywood and fantasy,” he said.
Latvia is repped at the Cannes Market by several of its own films, including Janis Nords’ “Mother I Love You” (pictured), which was Berlin’s Grand Prix winner and is being sold by New Europe Sales; Aigars Grauba’s “Dream Team 1935,” sold by Princ Films; and Inara Kolmane’s “Mona” from Perry Street Advisors.

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