Visiting Malta in the week of the inaugural Malta Film Awards (held on January 29) was a slightly disconcerting experience.
Signs celebrating the work of the Malta Film Commission were everywhere. Above the hand dryers by the Gents at baggage collection in Luqa International airport, there was a poster of an old production of The Count Of Monte Cristo with the Commission’s logo at the bottom. At every roundabout on the road to Valletta were billboards trumpeting Malta Film Week and the awards, which were to be broadcast live on TV.
It is now five years since Johann Grech was appointed Malta Film Commissioner in 2017. Previously, he had worked in marketing, both with the Government of Malta and with TBWA\ANG.
In his time as commissioner, Grech has sharply polarised opinions. There are plenty in the local industry and media who’ve questioned his perceived extravagance (pre-pandemic, he and his team travelled widely) and his close links to Malta’s controversial former prime minister, Jospeh Muscat.
Nonetheless, Grech’s claims to have had a galvanising effect on the film and TV sector are backed up by the projects coming to Malta. Films and series like Jurassic World: Dominion and Das Boot have shot recently on the island. Ridley Scott is due to return this year with his big-budget Napoleon Bonaparte epic, Kitbag.
Productions are drawn by one of the most generous tax incentives available (raised from 27% to 40% three years ago), as well as the island’s spectacular locations, the famed water tanks at The Malta Film Studios and skilled and experienced local crews.
Grech has secured significant public funding (€35m) for the building of a major new soundstage and associated facilities at Malta Film Studios. His strategy is to turn the industry “from a seasonal one” in which international filmmakers come to Malta only in the summer into one in which productions carry on “back-to-back,” all year round.
The last significant public investment in facilities was 40 years ago, when a second water tank was created for Lew Grade’s Raise The Titanic (1980) at the Mediterranean Film Studios (now called The Malta Film Studios and owned by the government).
The first water tank had been created in the early 1960s for Cold War naval thriller The Bedford Incident. The tank opened in 1964, which was also the year Malta gained its independence from the UK.
Speaking to Screen shortly before the inaugural film awards were due to begin, Grech spoke about his long-term vision for Malta’s film industry. The awards (which local news sources say cost at least €400,000 to stage and possibly more) had already provoked a backlash in some quarters.
“We’re filing an FOI request for your invoice to Malta, but I was wondering whether you could just cut to the chase and tell us how much you were paid to speak at what was turned into a party-political event,” journalist Matthew Caruana Galizia, son of the investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia (whose murder in 2017 led to Muscat’s resignation in 2019), tweeted to UK author/comedian David Walliams, who was hosting the show.
The Malta Producers Association and the Malta Entertainment Industry and Arts Associations called on the government to reform the film sector in Malta, charging it with wasting money on extravagant TV shows despite a chronic lack of investment in local productions. Producers boycotted the show and several films which should have been awards contenders were conspicuous by their absence. For example, there was no sign of Alex Camilleri’s Luzzu which screened in Sundance last year, the first Maltese feature to do so, and was sold widely by Memento International.
For Grech, though, the event was a way of putting the local film and TV industry in the national and international shop window – an excellent marketing opportunity.
“The idea of the Malta Film Awards came out of a discussion with a local crew member,” Grech explains. “He came to my office and he told me, ‘You know, Johann, we’re doing a success and we want more people to join us, why not do an open day so that local people will understand more about the crafts and skills of our people [in film and TV]?’”
The idea took root and Grech set out to create an event that would celebrate “local talent and creativity” as well as being lively, colourful and “of high international standards”. Walliams was invited to host to bring humour and irony to an event that might otherwise become too solemn and self-conscious. (Walliams began the evening by threatening to “taser” any award winner who spoke for too long.)
There were 72 applications for awards from local film and TV productions. These were judged by a panel of local and international judges whose names weren’t disclosed. In the lead-up to the event, Grech and his team also put together a film week of panels, discussions and masterclasses that featured speakers including John Powell, Roland Joffé and Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow.
Bigger vision
The awards are one part of Grech’s bigger vision. When he was appointed Malta film commissioner in 2017, he announced a master plan which he believes he is now delivering on. “We want to create a world-class film industry,” he states. “Our vision is not just about infrastructure but it is also about creating tomorrow’s filmmakers – not just about funding but about education and training.”
Grech thinks he is winning over local critics. As evidence, he cites the local production directory, ‘Opportunity For All’, which he launched in 2018. At first, only 200 crew members registered; now, there are over 1100. In 2018, there were 60 companies registered; today, there are over 400.
“When I became commissioner, crew members were coming to my office, telling me, ‘I don’t have a job.’ I told them I needed some time to re-fix the proposition. If you ask today the same people… they will tell you they are full of work.
“It is a success story and we want more success,” Grech continues. “In the last three years, the film industry created more than 2,000 jobs working within the industry and within those industries linked to film.”
Between March 2020 and December 2021, Grech claims the film industry brought €98m to the local economy – a significant benefit in the middle of a pandemic.
Projects set to come to Malta in the coming months include Scott’s Kitbag and potentially a fourth series of Sky/Bavaria’s Das Boot. The Mission Impossible team have also been scouting on the island.
Working with Malta Tourism Authority, Grech is also keen to boost film tourism. He is hoping to offer studio tours where visitors can see where films like Gladiator were shot. Malta is also bound to receive a boost when Jurassic World: Dominion is released this year – Universal’s franchise film features a key set-piece where dinosaurs run amok on the island.
“We want to look at models like New Zealand and Ireland where they have been successful not just with the film industry but also with screen tourism with Game Of Thrones and The Lord Of The Rings,” Grech notes. The aim is to “keep artifacts” from some of the movies shooting on the island and to preserve sets.
Co-production is also back on the agenda. Malta is not currently part of the Council of Europe’s cinema support fund Eurimages but Grech is contemplating joining the organisation. Malta has co-production treaties with Canada and China and also uses the Convention for working with European partners.
And he argues that “strengthening the local domestic industry” is a key ambition in his strategy – crucial not just for giving Maltese filmmakers the chance to tell their own stories but for ensuring the country is in a position to service international production.
Part of the sales pitch for the famed water tanks is that they offer filmmakers “an infinite horizon”. Shoot your film there and you will have the illusion that the sea stretches for as far as you can see. “Infinite horizon” is an apt term too for describing Grech’s ambitions for the local film industry.
“We want to build a long-lasting, strong, sustainable industry,” Grech says, repeating his familiar slogan. “Whatever the budget, we are open for business.”
The challenge Grech faces is not just to continue attracting big-budget international projects but to convince Malta’s local production community that he also has their best interests at heart.
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