In his new article, published in Portuguese on December 20th in the Revista de Cinema, the President of Latin American Training Center-LATC, Steve Solot, examines the absence of national incentives for audiovisual production in Brazil, contrasting it with Colombia’s successful policies that have attracted major international projects like Netflix’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.
The English version of the article is below.
Another year without a national incentive for production in Brazil while Colombia shows the way
By Steve Solot
Another year goes by and Brazil lags behind other countries that understand the enormous benefits generated by incentives for the production of audiovisual content.
Colombia, on the other hand, is once again reaping the rewards of its long-term strategy of creating benefits for the production of audiovisual content and is demonstrating the results of this public policy with the impressive production of “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” released by Netflix last month.
Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s famous novel is one of the most ambitious audiovisual projects in the history of Latin America, as seen in the data recently released by the Colombian government (Proimágenes and the Colombia Film Commission).
The series was filmed entirely in Colombia, after Netflix acquired the rights to the work in 2019, and in 2021, the project was approved to receive the CINA incentive (Audiovisual Investment Certificate), a fiscal mechanism under Law 1556 that grants a transferable tax credit of 35% on the total expenditure made in the country for eligible international productions. In this case, for the investment of the series in Colombia, the CINA incentive was approximately 47 billion pesos (10.8 million dollars).
The CINA and the Colombia Film Fund Incentive (FFC), which offers a “cash rebate” (a reimbursement of part of the investment made in audiovisual and logistics services), have been essential in creating a favorable environment for international audiovisual production in the country. These incentives have allowed Colombia to attract successful productions in recent years, such as “Paddington: An Adventure in the Forest”, “Freelance”, “Shadow Force”, “Beyond the Game” and “Unlikely Couple”.
In fact, Colombia’s sophisticated system of production incentives began in 2012 with the FFC’s “cash rebate” and only began offering the “transferable tax credit” model in 2020. Thus, it is not surprising that, for Brazil, the recent study by Olsberg SPI initially recommends establishing an incentive in the “cash rebate” format.
Olsberg SPI’s “Economic Impact Study for a New Federal Incentive for Audiovisual Production in Brazil” published in August 2024 demonstrates in detail how a federal incentive for audiovisual in Brazil could significantly stimulate the production of audiovisual content and generate economic and strategic benefits.
The study indicates that if a federal incentive were introduced in 2024 with an annual cap of $25 million or $100 million, SPI estimates that by 2030 the audiovisual production sector could generate up to $730 million (R$3.65 billion) and $1.03 billion (R$5.15 billion) in direct production spending, respectively. In addition, the incentive could directly create around 11,000 and 15,500 jobs in 2030, respectively.
Thanks to the coordinated audiovisual public policies of the Colombian government, which clearly understood the benefits of the impact of incentives on spending and job creation, the country continues to lead the region in attracting international productions, and Garcia Marques’ project has reaffirmed Colombia as a competitive destination for international productions. Between 2023 and 2024, the country approved 64 projects with CINA, with a total investment value in the country of 249.8 million dollars, and 9 projects for the FFC of 24.4 million dollars.
According to Netflix data, the production of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” contributed more than $52 million to the country’s economy. This number is a measure of the impact on GDP and includes both the impact of direct production costs and costs incurred in the supply chain. In addition, the production involved more than 5,000 people, including technical and artistic teams and extras needed for all scenes, more than 100,000 hotel nights, more than 850 local suppliers of goods and services, and 40,000 pieces of clothing, among other items.
Of course, well-designed production incentives are crucial economic tools, providing direct and indirect benefits through job creation, infrastructure investment, and even tourism. Production incentives generate economic value beyond the initial production costs, making them a beneficial investment for the country as a whole.
The question remains: when will Brazil join the countries competing for audiovisual productions to generate economic growth and jobs and develop cultural industries by implementing an incentive for the domestic production of audiovisual content?
