08-06-2011

Record Month for Malta Film Industry

By FNE Staff

    VALLETTA: June 2011 is going down as a record-breaking month for Malta's film service industry, with at least five films and TV productions planning to shoot in the island nation.

    They include World War Z for Paramount, starring Brad Pitt; a large-scale Norwegian film, Kon-Tiki, employing as many as 650 extras in a day; the Sinbad TV series for Sky1; and films from Italy and India.

    According to the Times of Malta, the explosion of film productions is challenging the local service industry, with supplemental crews coming in from abroad. Even hotel rooms and car rental companies are said to be close to capacity.

    The situation has the Malta Producers Creative Partnership warning companies not to take advantage of the abundance of work by pricing themselves out of the market, as happened when Munich filmed in Malta in 2005.