Everyone loses if films made in Australia get hit with 100% US tariffs, say Screen Producers
Donald Trump’s plan to slap 100% tariffs on movies produced outside the United States would have a dramatic impact on the Australian screen producers sector, says SPA Council chair Kate Carnell. She says filmmaking in Australia would become significantly less attractive to Americans. The US President has singled out incentives from other countries to attract American film production elsewhere, describing it as a “national security threat … messaging and propaganda”. In Australia, a 30 per cent location offset is offered by the federal government, as well as a 30 per cent offset for post, digital and visual effects (PDV) production. Many state governments also offer their own incentives. Donald Trump’s threat comes despite data showing American-produced movies overwhelmingly dominate the market place, enjoying a $US15-billion trade surplus.
Kate Carnell says it would be very hard to implement a 100% tariff on movies produced outside of the US because of the way films are conceived, written, produced and directed in different geographical locations.
Speaking to The Business from the Screen Producers Australia conference on the Gold Coast, Kate Carnell says the people involved in consultations for a new project could be rethinking it.
But she thinks US movie makers will push back on the tariffs too, because they wouldn’t want their costs going up. She says “it’s already very expensive to produce movies. If it had to be done in Hollywood, it would be significantly more.”
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