National Film Commission of Uzbekistan has reached particular agreements with several countries, including Great Britain, Sweden, France and Baltic countries in the context of the prestigious Film Festival “Berlinale”.
Based on these agreements, Uzbekistan is expected to receive 5-6 million US Dollars by promoting filming locations during 2020-2021. The National Cinema Commission of Uzbekistan has been participating at the “European Film Market” as part of the Film Festival BERLINALE for already two years, where they opened the national pavilion on 20 February. The current activity is being implemented under the realization of the President’s order on the further development of tourism with the support of the State Committee on Tourism Development, the Youth Union and the Embassy of the Republic of Uzbekistan in Germany.
200 stands from more than 110 countries have been exhibited at the Film Market this year, which gathered more than 20 000 visitors. “Bilateral meetings with foreign film studios and international media organizations have been held as part of the festival. As a result of the meeting and negotiations with the interested film production companies under the Berlinale Film Festival, representatives of European companies are planning to visit Uzbekistan in order to select appropriate locations and to learn more about the opportunities of filming in the country” – quoted by Mukhlisa Azizova, the Chairman of the National Film Commission of Uzbekistan.
With the aim of promoting the domestic filming locations, the commission has signed an agreement with the General Manager of the Filming Locations of the London International Fair “Focus Location Guide” Jean Frederic. According to the agreement, location managers of Hollywood and Great Britain will visit our country as soon as October of the current year. Director and producer of the Swedish film production company “Smartfilm” Toi Broderic is also interested in filming in Uzbekistan. They are working on a new project with a 3 million USD budget and will be having a scouting trip to Uzbekistan to make a selection of locations for the shooting.
Colin Pons, a producer from Greece has also decided to use the ancient cities Bukhara, Samarkand and the capital city Tashkent for his great documentary project about the Great Silk Road. The next level of the negotiations included discussing the organization of the filming for the historical movie “Sultan” in the territory of Uzbekistan with the management of the holding “Star Media”. Many companies from the Baltic region are also interested in the idea. Ramunas Skikas, a director from Latvia, has been deeply impressed by the advantages of shooting in Uzbekistan and is planning his fantastic action movie to be filmed in Surkhandarya region of Uzbekistan.
Meeting with representatives of a famous publication KFTW UK was one of the most fruitful ones during the event. The publication has an online platform in English and covers the worldwide cinema industry, having a print run of 50 000 editions a year, including all of the film festivals. An article about Uzbekistan with photos of local locations and historical places is going to be published in their next edition.
Uzbekistan will also be included in the international cinema database “Etalents Pro”, where our actors and locations will be promoted on the international level in the list of Central Asian countries, according to the agreement with the General Manager of the service Laura Yergalieva.
Active negotiations with the representatives of film companies of France, Great Britain and India have also been held regarding the shooting of high-budget projects in Uzbekistan region, the details of the projects will be presented to the audience in the soonest time. As a result of negotiations in Berlin, due to the implementation of the above-mentioned projects, Uzbekistan is expected to earn an income flow of 5-6 million USD during 2020-2021.
“Today cinema tourism is becoming one of the most modern and interesting types of travel industry. It is also an effective way for the development of new products, film museums, location tours, as well as the presentation of the historical tourist attractions. Uzbekistan’s great touristic potential should be promoted in all various ways, including cinema tourism. We should make all necessary efforts on attracting cinema investors to the country and The Uzbek Embassy in Germany is ready to cooperate in achieving the goals, contacting each cinema production company in Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the Czech Republic” – said the Ambassador.
