Along with Morocco, Island and Northern Ireland, the HBO (hbo.com) TV series Game of Thrones, vol.3 was shot in Croatia in 2012 with the local company Embassy Films providing services. The Dubrovnik-based company established in 2004 also worked with Game of Thrones on the second season which was shot in Croatia for 20 days in 2011. The third season had 10 days of shooting in Croatia, also filming in UK, Morrocco, and Iceland. Erika Milutin, the head of Embassy Films, told FNE that joining the EU won’t change things drastically. “I am not expecting much. It will be easier to handle work permits, possibly equipment import. Logistics mainly,” she said. Embassy Films has two projects for 2013, second units for projects mainly shooting in Hungary: a US and a Swedish production. A collaboration with a British production is set for March 2014.
Game of Thrones, vol.3, by Dan Minahan, David Benioff, Dan Weiss and David Nutter, is one of the international projects taking advantage of the 20% cash rebate scheme which shot in Croatia in 2012. The same goes for the TV film Unterwegs mit Elsa by Bettina Woernle (a German production of Rowboat partially shot in Croatia with Pakt Media, providing services), Oliver Hirschbiegel's British production Diana starring Naomi Watts (produced by Ecosse Films, with MP Produckcija, as local service provider), Eyjafjallajökull/Icelandic Volcano by Alexandre Coffre and starring Dany Boon (produced by the French Yume-Quad Films with Adriatic film, blueskycroatia.com providing services), and Cure by Andrea Štaka (a Croatian-Bosnian-Swiss coproduction with the Croatia Ziva Produckcija involved). Also benefitting of the cash rebate scheme, A Patriotic Man, produced by the Finnish Art Films in coproduction with MP Produckcija, was shot in Spring 2013, and Jasmila Zbanic's Island of Love is curently filming. The project involves the German company Komplizen Film, the Swiss company Okofilm Productions, Bosnia’s Deblokada and the Croatia’s Produkcija Živa.
Five international coproductions with Croatia were produced and co-financed by HAVC in 2012 and all of them received international recognition: the German-Croatian-Bulgarian coproduction Sofia's Last Ambulance by Ilian Metev (through Nukleus Film), Peter Greenaway’s Goltzius and the Pelican Company, a Dutch-French-British-German-Croatian coproduction (through MP Film Production), Krugovi/Circles by Srdan Golubovic (through Propeler Film), the Slovenian-Croatian comedy Srečen za umret/Good to Go by Matevž Luzar (through Ars Septima), and Kad Svane Dan/When Day Breaks by Goran Paskalijevic (through Maxima Film).
In various stages of production, postproduction or waiting for the premiere are the other international coproductions: The Bridge Over the Ibar River/Die Brücke am Ibar by Michaela Kezele (Maxima film), Falsifikator by Goran Markovic (Jadran Film), Dual by Nejc Gazvoda (Studio dim), and Sudilište by Stephan Komandareva (Propeller film). The international coproductions Oslobođenje Skopja/The Liberation of Skopje by Danila and Rade Serbedzija (Lijenog filma) and Svetozar Ristovski’s Lazar (Mainframe Film Production are in preproduction.
