On July 17th, the OIFF Film Industry Office section officially started. The key event of the day was “Cinema for tourism, cinema about tourism and tourism for cinema” networking of film commissions which took place in the framework of professional section for the second time. "The ultimate synergy of such events is a guarantee of a healthy development of the film industry. Since last year the first networking was very productive and could not seat all those who wanted to participate, this year we have allocated a whole day for such a form of cooperation ", - said Julia Sinkevych, OIFF general producer.
Oleksandra Oliynykova, the head of "Odessa 5T" Development Programs Agency, and Ivan Liptuga, the President of the National Tourism Organization of Ukraine, Adviser to the First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, gave the opening remarks.
Within the networking a panel discussion on “Development of film commissions in Ukraine – strategy and practice” took place.
The participants were able to listen to the presentations of film commissions from 6 Ukrainian regions - to Serhiy Mirankov (Kyiv Film Commission), Iryna Kovalchuk (Lviv Film Commission), Pavlo Homonay, V’yacheslav Iehorov (Transcarpathian Film Commission), Leonid Bitsiura (Ternopil Film Commission), Vladislav Sevriukov (Bukovyna Film Commission) and Mar’iana Zaklinska ( Ivano-Frankivsk Film Commission).
Ivan Liptuga was moderating the meeting of film industry representatives, tourist industry representatives and local administrations representatives.
He noted that for the last 60-70 years there has been a burst of tourist activity. The number of trips has increased from 25 million to 1 billion 300 million which is 50 times more. Hence, tourism is one of the three branches in the world that are the most dynamic in their development. Among 51% of tourists’ trips to Europe, Ukraine gets only 2%, though. The reasons for that might be the lack of sufficient information about the country, the lack of consistent marketing including the means of cinematography. Over the past 7 years, The Chinese have been the most avid tourists. They have spent 258 billion dollars on trips throughout the year.
Anatoliy Taranenko, the head of the tourism and promotions department of the Kyiv State Administration, delivered a presentation on "City tourism and film industry". There were other presentations made by Andrii Osipov, Odessa Film studio chairman of the board; Tatyana Markova, the head of Culture and Tourism Department of Odessa City Council and Anastasia Bukovska, FAMILY PRODUCTION.
Mrs. Anastasia noted that after FAMILY PRODUCTION shot some commercials for multi-worldwide brands in Kyiv and grabbed three awards at the advertising section of the Cannes Lions festival for its videos, the interest of the international community to Ukrainian locations has grown dramatically. That’s why production companies will soon need help from the film commissions at different cities of Ukraine.
Also, during the first day of the Film Industry Office section, the participants discussed the prospects of legislation as for the film industry. In particular, the implementation deadline for cash-rebate system. Please note and remember that the events within the Film Industry Office professional section will last till July 20th.
