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Last week, Association of Film Commissioners International’s Locations & Global Finance Show took place in Burbank, California, featuring Kyrgyzstan for the first time.

The show is world’s biggest event, connecting producers in search of locations for their projects to film commissions, promoting the locations. This is a unique opportunity for countries to showcase their beauty and film-related advantages and invite foreign film and TV crews.

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The booth of KRIFCom, decorated in the national flag’s red and gold colors, made hundreds of visitors stop in amazement. After day 1, an AFCI committee gave KRIFCom a prize for best branding among more than 70 booths at the venue.

In the course of the show, we discussed prospects of filming in Kyrgyzstan with more than 200 producers, locations managers and independent filmmakers, including employees of Paramount, Warner Brothers, Disney, ABC, HBO and Fox Sport. KRIFCom had even more detailed conversations, which can yield in real projects.

KRIFCom film commissioner Stanislav Solovkin named cash and tax incentives the main factor of attracting Western filmmakers and TV productions to the country.

«Almost all developed countries guarantee a cash rebate of 15-30% to foreign crews. This is completely affordable even for countries with modest budgets, such as Kyrgyzstan.Without cash and tax incentives, the interest is much lower. Film and TV is business: filmmakers will produce where it’s most lucrative,» Solovkin said.

Last year’s show attracted a total of 3,170 visitors, among them 1,081 producers, 161 location managers and 83 independent filmmakers. This year’s expo was Kyrgyzstan’s first real step into the world film and TV industry. Without government funding, KRIFCom has made it clear to Hollywood professionals that Kyrgyzstan is ready to compete with all the other countries and regions to host productions of any scale.

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