Evidence of the increase in the number of Greek and foreign audiovisual works, series and films made in Hellas It’s also a shortage of staff. OUR audiovisual industry perhaps belongs, along with tourism and construction, to sectors where the demand for employment in relation to the supply of labor is disproportionately high. As Central Athens Productions producer Andreas Tsilifonis recently stated at an audiovisual development event in Greece, production companies cannot find staff in almost all specialties.

The figures indicate a large boom in the production of audiovisual content, also due to investment incentives (cash rebate), which correspond to a subsidy of 40% of eligible costs compared to 35% and 25% in the recent past. Just last year, according to his financial report National Center for Audiovisual Media and Communications (ECOME) for 2021, 96 applications (audiovisual) projects for inclusion in the cash rebate were submitted for approval.

Of these, 79 were approved (15 withdrawn and 1 rejected), resulting in 21,878 jobs created, representing an eligible cost of €207.3 million. Eligible costs, which must not exceed 80% of the total project budget and include, among others, crew and cast fees, are in line with the €85.3 million cash rebate program reimbursement for 2021.

In total, since 2018, 273 investment projects have been or will be included in the cash discount, of which 158 concern domestic production and 115 international, that is, cross-border joint productions between Greek manufacturers and service providers and production companies from Europe, Asia, the USA and Australia.

The list of producers that have recently received subsidies includes the American film The Stonemason (€5.2 million out of €13 million eligible cost), the TV series The Bridge (€615,000 out of €1.5 million) and the film Summer in Crete. (€460,000 out of €1.1 million).

Two investment projects are underway for film studios in Athens and Thessaloniki.

This activity for EKOME, a private legal entity controlled by the Ministry of Digital Management, was accompanied by an expenditure of 7.6 million euros in 2021, of which the lion’s share (4.7 million euros) is related to the implementation of rebate programs. . Last year, the EKOME budget approved by the General Assembly for 2020 was negative and, accordingly, the financial result was negative and amounted to 235,300 euros. EKOME, as stated in its 2021 financial report, is suffering from an understaffing with 55 employees.

However, none of the 71 organizational positions are covered, since all of its employees are “seconded from other government bodies in derogation from written procedures, at the same time they retain the right to withdraw their secondment before the expiration of their term in the body expires.”

Another operational issue that EKOME is intended to address includes its relocation to a suitable building to enable the establishment of the National Repository for Audiovisual Archives. Thus, the company is going to move to the building at 8-10 Vulis Street, owned by EFKA, but it needs renovation, which means that at least three years will pass before the completion of the project, since the necessary financial resources are from the supervising ministry.

In any case, the Greek audiovisual production ecosystem is strengthening and the next milestone will be the establishment of a film studio in Greece. Nu Boyana Studios, based in Bulgaria, controlled by US-based Nu Image-Millennium Films, is launching development on an area of ​​about 30 acres in Thermi in Thessaloniki, six state-of-the-art sets, production halls and all the necessary infrastructure. for film production. This is an investment of 50 million euros, which is to be included in the regime of symbolic investments of exceptional importance, as provided for in the development law. Arab interests The MBC Group, which last March acquired 30% of the Antenna Group with a €225 million share capital increase, is also looking to build state-of-the-art film studios.

However, in order to maintain strong audiovisual growth in the long term, actors in the field are requesting an extension of the cash rebate program for more than five years.