The fire that keeps burning : a practice-based approach to film co-production possibilities between Malta and Germany

Abstract

This thesis aims to elucidate the potentials of film coproduction between a small country – Malta – and a large country – Germany. To this end, it aims to outline the circumstances and conditions in which a small country like Malta can cooperate with a country like German; to construct a schedule, budget and financial plan reflecting the diverse stakes in a film production aiming for European coproduction funding involving Malta as majority producer and Germany as the minority producer; and to reveal which inhibitors producers in Malta need to be aware of. The methodology contains two parts: a qualitative approach in the form of in-depth interviews with relevant industry stakeholders followed by a content analysis of these interviews; there is also a practical element, in which the script is broken down to create a schedule, budget and financial plan of a full feature-film script based on the data retrieved from the in-depth interviews. The results show that co-productions between Malta and Germany are possible if Germany is a majority producer. A co-production with Malta as majority producer is only realistic if the post-production is done in Germany and the budget is below €1 million. Inhibiting factors that producers need to be aware of, are the absence of a co-production setup in Malta, limited funding possibilities, and the lack of human and technical resources. The data also gives suggestions on how the co-production framework in Malta could be improved.