Industry Resources
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- Written by Kemar McInnis
What is a Film Co-Production?
A film co-production is a joint venture between two or more production companies, with the aim of completing or advancing a film, TV, game or animation production. The terms of the agreements vary from country to country and company to company, but it estabishes how much funding each party brings to the table, how ownership rights are split, which territories each party controls the rights to, how taxes must be split and other co-production arrangements.
What is a treaty?
A treaty, is an agreement between two or more contries to facilitate collaboration. Co-productions can happen without treaties and are called informal co-productions. This involved two or more production companies collaborating on a project, however, treaties provde the added benefit of Government concessions. One of the typical concessions is that countries will only require each organization to pay taxes in their respecting countries to eliminate having to pay taxes for everyone employed in all the participating countries. This eliminates double taxation. Another concession which is possible are rebates for productions that hire a certain percentage of employees from a particular country participating in the agreement. Not all treaties are the same and you have to check the terms of agreement with your particular agreement.
Treaties often require specialized lawyers and accountants familiar with the laws and taxation in each country. Here are details on the UK Jamaica Co-Production Treaty.
UK JAMAICA Ireland Co-Production Treaty
