31 projects have tapped the TRIP rebate

France’s CNC and Film France have unveiled results for the first 16 months of the TRIP – the country’s tax rebate scheme designed to lure foreign producers to shoot in the territory.

The 20% rebate has been applied to 31 projects overall with four live action TV series (including the US show Gossip Girl), four animated TV series, two feature-length animated projects (including Despicable Me) and 21 features (Christopher Nolan’s Inception and Woody Allen’s Cannes opener Midnight In Paris among them).

Although the rebate has seen a rush of US projects, it is not reserved solely for the US with a total of eight countries including the UK, Norway, China and Japan turning to France to shoot.

Direct spend totals €119m for the 16-month period with the fiscal cost to France at Euros 20m. The organizations hailed the scheme in front of a packed press conference that included a lively Q&A with foreign producers and directors eager to learn more - with special attention given to the very rapid response period from application to approval which can take as little as three weeks.