Film

A creative country

Since producing the world’s first feature film in 1906, Australia’s screen industry has grown into a centre for world-class talent, both on and off screen.

The sector comprises more than 3000 creative businesses working across all facets of film and tv production. We draw from a deep pool of talented local actors, directors, writers, producers and crew, and we’re internationally renowned for our offerings in post, sound, music and visual effects production. Much of this talent is trained at one of our university-based film and television schools, both public and private.

An established network of government agencies and industry organisations – including Screen Australia and Ausfilm – support development, production and promotion as well as the people who make it happen.

Australia has long been a prime destination for international productions, which are drawn to our striking and varied locations, world-class studio facilities and generous government incentives.

We’re now winning an even bigger slice of the pie, with international drama production in Australia reaching an all-time high of $1.04 billion in 2020/21. Since adding the Location Incentive to an already considerable suite of tax incentives in 2018, Australia has attracted more than 30 international film and TV productions, including Godzilla vs Kong, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Thor: Love and Thunder, Metropolis, Pieces of Her, Young Rock, Thirteen Lives, Escape from Spiderhead, and Nautilus.

Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Ragnarok. Photo Screen Australia

Australia has Official Co-production treaties or MOUs with 13 countries including the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Korea and Malaysia, facilitating economic and creative collaborations. Academy Award-winning film The Power of the Dog (Transmission Films and Netflix) is a recent Official Co-production, while recent collaborations between global studios and Australian filmmakers and companies include Nine Perfect Strangers (Hulu and Amazon Prime) and Clickbait (Netflix).

‘The highly skilled crews, the lifestyle and living environment and Australia’s repsonse to COVID-19 make it a very attractive and secure place to shoot’ – E Bennet Walsh, Executive Producer, Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat. Image courtesy of Universal Pictures International Australia

Australia’s screen talent isn’t just in front of the camera – we’re also home to world-leading studios creating state-of-the-art visual effects. Australia’s reputation for sophisticated, complex photo-real work has been forged partly through work on iconic franchises like The Avengers, X-Men, The Hunger Games and the Harry Potter films. The Batman, Eternals and Spiderman: No Way Home are just a few of the large-scale foreign productions recently completing post, sound, music and VFX in Australia. With a steady pipeline of international production in Australia, it’s no wonder that visual effects pioneer Industrial Light & Magic – founded by George Lucas and behind such iconic movies as Star Wars and Jurassic Park - recently established its newest studio in Sydney.

Animated by Sydney-based creative digital studio Animal Logic, The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie grossed a combined US$779m worldwide

Generous incentives and grants sweeten the deal for productions in Australia. The Australian Government offers a suite of tax incentives to offset production expenditure:

• The Post, Digital and Visual Effects (PDV) Offset is a 30% rebate for expenditure on post, digital and visual effects work.
• The Location Offset is a 16.5% rebate on expenditure. On top of this, you can apply for a merit-assessed Location Incentive grant of up to 13.5%, bringing the total offset to 30%.
• The Producer Offset is a rebate of up to 40% available to producers of Australian feature films, television and other eligible projects.
• Screen Australia provides development and production funding to Australian content on all screens, as well as a range of other support for businesses, talent and events.
• The Australian Children’s Television Foundation provides funding and support to independent producers and writers of quality children's programs.

There’s also support from state, territory and local government screen agencies, which offer a range of grants and incentives that can be combined with federal funding.