London, Oct 16 (IANS) Britain’s film production is holding up well despite the global economic downturn, collapse in the pre-sales market, drop in advertising budgets and faltering DVD sales.
While 61 films were made in the first nine months last year, this year saw 62 come out during the like period. Also, the number of inward investment films increased from 22 to 28.

The total spend on production fell slightly from 182.8 million British pounds to 154.2 million pounds, as did the level of co-productions — from 18 in the first nine months of 2008 to eight in the corresponding period this year.

Inward investment — films substantially financed and controlled from abroad but shot in whole or in part in Britain — was at an all-time high for the first nine months of the year.

Total spend from such financing increased 142 percent — from 283.7 million pounds in the period under review in 2008 to 686.4 million pounds this year, said the UK Film Council in a statement.

Prominent home productions shot between January to September this year were “Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang”, “Paul”, “The Killer Inside Me”, “1-800-Love”, “Centurion”, “Blitz”, “Tamara Drewe”, “St Trinians II: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold” and “The Great Ghost Rescue”.

Other important films that started shooting in Britain in the third quarter of 2009 include “Inception”, “The Special Relationship” and “Your Highness”.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I”, an untitled Robin Hood Adventure, “Clash of the Titans” and “Gulliver’s Travels” were shot in the first half.

“The UK’s film industry is actually weathering this global financial storm relatively well and we’re of course helped by the current favourable exchange rate. That’s not to say there aren’t going to continue to be challenges ahead, but today’s figures show just how resilient we are as an industry,” said UK Film Council chief executive John Woodward in the statement.

“Not only do we have a critical mass of world-class facilities and talent hugely skilled in making good quality and popular films, but the film tax credit is an important building block in this success, and it’s going to be crucial to maintain it in the future,” he added.

Woodward, however, is concerned about the continuous drop in independent British co-productions.

“This is largely a function of the one flaw in the otherwise excellent film tax credit which disincentivises UK participation in co-productions by focusing tax relief only on production spend made on the ground in the UK,” he said.

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