In mid 2009 the regulations to Law 36 of 2007 for the promotion of film and audiovisual industry in Panama.
It was, supposedly, the first step in developing a domestic industry. Nothing is further from reality, made the local film guild that time, sustaining their discomfort in the absence of points in the legal document that favored projects in Panama.
All that is contemplated in the Act was a support fund for the local cinema, which to date does not work, detailed Luis Pacheco, president of the Motion Picture Association of Panama (Asocine).
All went well, despite the new standard film. The work of filmmaking in the country remains heroic, hard and lonely, say workers of cinema.
The challenges range from lack of funding to the absence of tax incentives for investment in the audiovisual field, summarize the directors Abner Benaim, Pituka Ortega Heilbron and Jose Macias.
Rethinking Law 36 was the motto of the guild movie since then has Pacheco, a goal that was achieved after a series of meetings between July and October 2010 in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (Mici), details.
From these negotiations emerged a consensus proposal with the Government. This is for the incipient changes in local cinema.
These amendments to the Act will enter into debate in the National Assembly after Carnival, and if approved will benefit local projects and overseas that are filmed here, “says Pacheco, generating cultural and economic dividends for the isthmus.
In Asocine registration features 17 projects under preparation, and according to the Mici, foreign productions in 2010 left more than 14 million dollars in the country.