The United States President announced in a post on his Truth Social platform on Monday he was authorising the Department of Commerce and the country’s trade representative to ‘‘immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% tariff on any and all movies coming into our country that are produced in foreign lands’’.
‘‘We want movies made in America, again!’’
Shares in some US streaming and production companies, including Netflix, fell following the announcement, but the White House later said ‘‘no final decisions’’ on foreign film tariffs had been made.
Dunedin-born film-maker Rob Sarkies – director of Scarfies, Out of the Blue and the upcoming drama based on the 2010 tragedy Pike River – said yesterday he was ‘‘very concerned’’ by Mr Trump’s comments.
‘‘If it came in as it’s been proposed, not that the detail is particularly clear, but as I understand it, it would be absolutely devastating for New Zealand and specifically the New Zealand film industry.
‘‘We’re talking millions and millions of dollars simply wouldn’t come here and a large number of people would be out of work.
‘‘I think companies like Weta, for example, would probably be forced to relocate to survive.’’
It would ‘‘simply be unaffordable’’ for such companies doing high-end work for big Hollywood productions to get hired unless they relocated aspects of their business to the United States – which he believed was exactly what Mr Trump wanted.
The announcement should be taken seriously and he expected the New Zealand film industry and the government in the interim to lobby against such a policy, but believed Hollywood was likely to push back and the announcement could be back-tracked.
Areas of Otago recently played host to Hollywood actors and crews filming the seven-episode Netflix adaptation of John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel East of Eden.
While the source material is mainly set in the Salinas Valley, California, it appeared to have been ‘‘clearly more cost effective’’ to use the Otago landscape as a stand-in, Mr Sarkies said.
Because film production in Otago was ‘‘more sporadic’’ than in Auckland and Wellington, such a tariff would have relatively less of an effect among regional industries.
‘‘The circus won’t come to town as often and that will have an effect, but it won’t be as devastating as it will be in the major centres.’’
tim.scott@odt.co.nz
