Co-production (filmmaking)

An international co-production is a production where two or more different production companies are working together, for example in a film production. In the case of an international co-production, production companies from different countries (typically two to three) are working together.

Co-production also refers to the way services are produced by their users, in some parts or entirely.

Following the Second World War, US film companies were forbidden by the Marshall Plan to take their film profits in the form of foreign exchange out of European countries. As a result, several film companies started studios and production companies in nations such as the United Kingdom and Italy to use their "frozen funds".

To use these profits in England, film companies would set up production companies using the required amount of British film technicians and actors to qualify as British Productions in order to take advantage of the Eady Levy.

At the same time, US citizens working outside the country for 510 days during a period of 18 months would not be taxed on their earnings by the Internal Revenue Service. Though this scheme was developed for the aid of American humanitarian workers redeveloping nations destroyed in World War II, agents discovered that Hollywood actors, directors, and screenwriters would qualify for the tax break by working outside the US for the same period.

International film co-production was very common in the 50s, 60s and 70s between Italian, Spanish and French production companies, as exemplified by most of the Spaghetti-western and sword and sandal movies being Spanish-Italian coproductions, typically directed by an Italian, played fifty-fifty by Spanish and Italian actors and shot in southern Spain landscapes. Due to the worldwide popularity of Hollywood stars they would be used to guarantee a respectable audience around the world as well as the United States. The relatively low production costs and high box office return of these films often led to direct Hollywood investment to the non-US studios and producers such as Dino DeLaurentis. An example of such pan-European coproductions was Treasure Island (1972), a British-French-German-Italian-Spanish film, starring US Orson Welles.

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