The new Czech Culture Minister Antonin Stanek said at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival that Czech film incentives should be increased,

Antonin Stanek told the Czech News Agency (ČTK) that the ways to increase the incentives must be verified and politically pushed through.

The Czech Film Fund is ready to prepare a draft amendment to the incentives law, according to Helena Bezdek Frankova, the Head of the Czech Film Fund.

During the annual meeting of APA, the Czech Audiovisual Producers Association, in Karlovy Vary there were also calls from producers, who said without an increase in Czech incentives the industry would lose its competitive edge in servicing big international film productions.

The Czech industry is coming under increasing pressure from competition from its neighbours. Most of the neighbouring countries like Croatia and Hungary also have taxi incentives in place for filmmaking and Romania, which is a major player in the servicing of big international productions, introduced an incentive scheme of up to 35% recently. Poland is supposed to introduce a tax incentive scheme later this year.

Since the introduction of the new law in 2013, the Czech Film Fund has also administered the Czech incentives scheme. The incentives are granted in the form of a 20% cash rebate on Czech production costs and 66% on the withholding tax on non-resident labour costs paid in the Czech Republic. The incentives are available for feature films, TV and animation series, animated and documentary films. Maximum eligible costs are set at 80% of the total budget.