Nova Scotia film industry thriving almost 10 years after tax credit rescinded

Nova Scotia on film Crystal Garrett chats with the executive director of Screen Nova Scotia about current and upcoming productions in the province.

After the Nova Scotia government cut the film tax credit in 2015, the provincial movie industry is once again calling for lights, camera and plenty of action.

Laura Mackenzie is the executive director of Screen Nova Scotia. She says that the film industry in the province has completely recovered.

“We’re well beyond production volume numbers that we were doing pre-2015,” Mackenzie said during an interview with CTV Atlantic.

Mackenzie said it’s been a long road back for an industry that declared itself closed for business less than a decade ago. She said it took a lot of work and a community who rallied around the film industry to get a new rebate instated and bring production back to Nova Scotia. She added that premier Tim Houston argued for the film tax credit in the provincial legislature.

“The work that we did was to go out and to meet with the studios in Los Angeles and meet with the global community and let them know that we’re open for business,” Mackenzie said, adding that the industry received a boost from a movie that brought several Hollywood stars to Nova Scotia in 2018.

“It was ‘The Lighthouse’ in 2018 that came here,” Mackenzie said. The movie, which was directed by Robert Eggers, stars Willem Defoe and Robert Pattinson.

“That project really instilled confidence in L.A. that we could do the same type of business that we were doing.”

After that, Mackenzie says the provincial industry started to make a comeback.

“We started to rebuild our crews. We started to rebuild our infrastructure and now things are just booming,” Mackenzie said.

The government of Nova Scotia announced additional funding through a press release on July 2 for productions filming in rural parts of the province. The Distant Location Incentive offers up to seven per cent on total eligible Nova Scotia costs for filming more than 100 kilometres from Halifax city hall. The incentive increases up to 10 per cent for productions filmed 150 kilometres from city hall. Mackenzie said that there has always been a two per cent bonus for filming in rural locations, but it was not enough to offset the costs of filming away from the city’s infrastructure.

“Now productions can go out and they can film wherever they want across Nova Scotia,” Mackenzie said. “We have so much to offer in this province that hasn’t been captured yet, and untapped locations are gold out there in the film industry.”

Screen Nova Scotia has an up-to-date list of productions filming in Nova Scotia on its website.

For more Nova Scotia news visit our dedicated provincial page.