Scouting the shifts shaping the future of storytelling
Navigating today’s screen industry feels like that 1981 Missing Persons track: “Life is so strange, destination unknown”. Whether we’re scouting for the perfect backdrop or figuring out how AI fits into our creative flow, we’re all on an incessant hunt for clarity. Much like the focused gaze in the “Explore the Ocean State of Mind” campaign lensed by our PSN USA Florida partner, producers today need a long-range lens to spot the best opportunities hidden in a sea of mergers and shifting incentives.
This month’s news proves that while your project’s final “destination” might be a mystery at the start, our Production Service Network has a strategy for finding it. From PSN Spain facilitating drama on the shores of Mallorca to PSN Ukraine’s powerful storytelling inside the Chernobyl nuclear exclusion zone, the quest for authentic stories is driving us into locations that act as characters.
As you dive into these updates, you’ll see a common thread: even as technology closes the “imagination gap,” the human ability to scout, curate, and connect remains our most vital compass.
(R-L) Aly Moffat, Production Consultant & PSN UK Liaison Jo Rudolphy
(L-R) Kristin Wilcha, SR VP, Operations, AICP, Lauren Hertzberg, MD Cut + Run (VP/AICP East), Carolyn Hill, PSN US Liaison; Ena Nicole Abadjian, HOP Anonymous Content
And I’ll be moderating a panel of globetrotting producers in LA next week at the AFCI Studio Summit. We’ll explore how film commissions can adapt their incentives and infrastructure to attract projects of scale.
Continue reading on for my curated selection of recent industry news and insights along with newly released projects facilitated by our partner service companies worldwide.
FILM AND TELEVISION
At Intersection of Entertainment And Technology Sits World’s Largest Media Company
YouTube will be a major beneficiary of both the structural tailwinds and headwinds facing technology and media companies. One top YouTube creator says that they are already aggressively experimenting with the tools, mostly to help with things like set design, costumes, makeup and visual effects that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive or time-consuming.” (THR)
Most Netflix Originals Are Non-English Language But Spend Is Higher On English-Language Originals
“When non-English-language titles travel beyond their local market and perform well internationally — such as Korean-language ‘Bon Appétit, Your Majesty’ and German-language ‘Cassandra’ — they provide stronger returns on content investment for the global streamer.” (Variety)
Berlinale Spotlights How Young Audiences Reshape Marketing That Works
“While data-driven approaches are increasingly central, speakers emphasised the continued importance of human curation, long-term audience habit-building and thoughtful theatrical-first strategies, particularly for European independent content. ‘You have to be smart, targeting niche audiences and building direct relationships.’” (Cineuropa)
How Paramount Purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery Will Change Hollywood
“There are fears that WB will be hamstrung on dealmaking and big long-term swings while it waits for the sale to close. Already, filmmakers say that it’s taking longer for them to get an answer from the studio on the status of their projects, noting that the company is wary of committing too much money to new films when a different ownership team is waiting in the wings.” (Variety)
Banijay-All3Media $8B Mega-Merger Analysis
“Bigger continues to be seen as better in an environment in which Paramount Skydance is inhaling Warner Bros. Discovery. The newly-combined Banijay will comprise 170 production labels worldwide, the majority in the UK, including The Traitors maker Studio Lambert, Peaky Blinders producer Kudos and Neal Street, which is making Sam Mendes’ Beatles movies.” (Deadline)
The Oscars this year were not boring, because the winners felt like they mattered (and were good choices), and the people who put the show together have learned — by listening to the gripes about boring Oscar telecasts — how to sand off the rough edges and avoid the missteps and keep the spectacle moving. But the Oscars tonight weren’t exciting, either.” (Variety)
Netflix Touts New Jersey Studio And Incentive As Model For Bringing Production Home
“There are production incentives that draw production away. I think what we’ve done in New Jersey is going to change the course of production in the US completely, and I think other states will see the value of that as well.” (ScreenDaily)
Film Tourism Revenues To Double In Decade Where The Location Is A Brand
“AI technology will help personalize itineraries based on a viewer’s content preferences, creating seamless transitions from entertainment discovery to travel booking. In addition, augmented reality overlays will allow tourists to engage with filming locations in new ways, making their travel experience more interactive and memorable.” (TTW)
“For distributors and sales agents, the key takeaway from Berlin 2026 is cautious optimism. The modest growth at the market suggests that, despite consolidation among buyers and the downsizing of some global streamers, there is sustained demand for distinctive voices and regionally grounded stories with international framing.” (TLG)
Artists Call Foul As Berlinale Feigns Neutrality
“The claim that a state-supported institution occupies a position above or outside politics is, at minimum, difficult to sustain. The entanglement of art, finance, and political responsibility is not a crisis to be resolved so much as a structural condition to be managed with greater candor than most major festivals have so far shown.” (Impakter)
Applause In Spain Supports Cinema And Sends Political Message
“Barcelona is not Berlin. It took just 150 seconds to condemn “Gaza genocide” – with the audience pretty well unanimously bursting out in applause. Overall, the Goya Awards achieved a difficult double act of prizing “Sundays” but supporting “Sirāt,” also in the Oscar running for international feature.” (Variety)
Showmax Shutdown Closes Critical Window For African Content
“Its shutdown removes one of the only willing buyers of high-risk, locally rooted content. Furthermore, Showmax’s library was central to the African creative ecosystem; its disappearance leaves a hole in distribution and monetization for local creators.” (Variety)
African Screen Industry Pivots
“Adapt. Think different. Widen your horizons. Adapt to a changing world. See how consumers are changing. Because they are not stagnant. You cannot tell the same story in the same way and expect the audience to keep watching.” (Variety)
WGA Staff Picket Outside As Studio Talks Begin
“We are heartbroken that we have to be doing this because we want the writers to have the best damn contract possible,” said Dylan Holmes, a WGA attorney who co-chairs the staff union bargaining committee. “And we want to be in there helping them, helping our management, instead of picketing them. But we have to do what unions do, and make our voices heard.” (Variety)
AI-Generated Feature ‘Raphael’ Anchors MBC C&I Slate At HK Filmart
“‘Raphael’ follows an elite war android modeled after the youthful image of an aging dictator, who, while commanding forces in a refugee district, encounters a Catholic priest and begins a journey toward faith and redemption. The project blends science fiction, religion and action, and is set to premiere in September.” (Variety)
ADVERTISING
Mindset Shift Of Commercial Production
“Producers can’t think solely in terms of execution anymore. We must think about content strategically and systemically, anchored in what the client’s business needs are. We’re at an ‘adapt or die’ inflection point. The old rules and norms don’t hold, and staying in that mindset is risky.” (Shots)
Touchstones For Navigating Independent Production In 2026 And Beyond
“If you create within the restrictions, if you build an idea for a long film that translates to all the formats, if you write something that scales up or down and don’t overburden with version requirements and irresponsible ambition, then creativity can shine.” (Shots)
Shake The Cost Savings Obsession Of A.I. Adoption
“Your quest in automation should be about ‘what data can I use’, ‘how can I streamline my production’, ‘how can I optimise it’ so that I can, at the end of the day, produce better content that goes to more audiences faster.” (LBB)
World Building In Advertising – Brands Acting As Entertainment Studios
“What are the learnings to take away from these best-in-class brands? Each is extraordinarily pure and true to its very essence. They are uncompromising in what they stand for, how that is expressed, and to whom they are speaking. Give people a world they want to inhabit and watch; they may just handle the content distribution for you.” (Shots)
Stop Advertising, Start Entertaining Say Microdrama Makers
“Micro dramas mark a structural shift from an ‘elite-led long narrative era’ to an ‘algorithm-driven era of fragmented emotional consumption’. This is a fundamental shift in marketing strategy. Brands can either rent attention through advertising, or own attention by financing entertainment itself.” (LBB)
What Works In Branded Programming
“Partnerships that build long-term meaning tend to do three things: They reinforce positioning. They unlock a relevant new audience. They compound over time. If it doesn’t do at least one of those, you’re probably renting attention, not building equity.” (LBB)
Rage Bait Spillover Damages Advertisers
“Polarizing content is a bad deal for brands, period. Appearing next to polarizing content undermines advertising in critical ways, generating less attention, increasing negative brand perceptions and lowering recall and favorability.” (Synexus)
Marketing & Promo Teams Shine At 2026 Global Entertainment Awards
“The ceremony took place in Marbella, Spain, with awards spread across Television, Cinema, Streaming, Games and Emerging Talent – From ‘Black Doves’ To ‘Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’ And ‘Bluey’. Check out the full list of Global Entertainment Awards Winners.” (Deadline)
INCENTIVES
Mexico Launches 30% Cinema Incentive for Long Form and Commercial Productions
“A cornerstone of the new plan – also encompassing training, production, exhibition and preservation – is a new 30% Income Tax (ISR) incentive for projects carried out within Mexican territory. There is a maximum cap of 40 million pesos ($2.3M) per project or process. A key requirement is that projects must include at least 70 percent domestic suppliers.” (Deadline) Contact PSN Mexico to access funding.
Bulgaria Cap 5x Increase To Draw Larger Scale Projects
“Bulgaria has reinforced its position as an attractive filming destination by raising the cap on its cash rebate scheme from 1 m to 5 m EUR per project. Productions can now receive a 25% cash rebate on eligible expenses, including for film and TV series, with a total annual budget of 10.3 m EUR.” (FilmNewEurope) Contact PSN Bulgaria to access funding.
Malaysia Cash Rebate Guaranteed For Next Five Years
“Malaysia’s rebate stands apart from comparable programs offered globally because it covers a broad range of formats – from feature films and documentaries to TV series, streaming productions, visual effects and post-production work – and extends eligibility to above-the-line talent, including actors and performers working in Malaysia.” (Variety) Contact PSN Malaysia to access funding.
Impact And Future Of MEDIA Funding Examined At Berlinale
“Amid geopolitical tensions and disinformation risks European audiovisual works remain vital to democratic discourse and cultural cohesion. In a fragmented market, greater synergies between national, European and private funding still determine whether European stories travel beyond their borders.” (Cineuropa)
Turkey Unveils Incentive To Boost Its Global Brand Of Storytelling
Countries such as South Korea, Spain, and the United Kingdom have successfully used popular series to attract millions of visitors to filming locations. Turkish officials now seek to replicate and expand this model.” (P.A. Turkey) Contact PSN Turkey for the global impact.
Rallying Cry For Floundering Rebate System Kicks Off Joburg Film Festival
“While rebates have been delayed, our spirit has not. While international productions have abandoned South Africa for Malta and Portugal, where incentive programs function efficiently, our filmmakers have not abandoned their craft. While we wait for a system that seems to have forgotten us, we keep telling stories.” (Variety) Click here to read the SPI Economic Impact Study released this month.
Funding Freeze Labeled State-Sponsored Censorship By Serbian Filmmakers
“The Serbian film industry is currently facing a coordinated campaign of state-sponsored censorship,” the groups write. “While [national film body] Film Center Serbia continues to project a ‘business as usual’ image internationally, the reality is a total freeze on funding calls designed to starve independent production.” (THR) Contact PSN Serbia for the ground truth.
Alberta Trims Film Tax Incentive Amid Oil Price Volatility
“The war currently underway in Iran and the surrounding oil-rich Gulf States could yet boost oil prices to the point Alberta, a major oil producer on its own, will have more tax revenue to put towards film tax credits and other production subsidies. Predictions are always risky, but it does seem likely that Alberta will lose productions to jurisdictions that offer a better deal.” (THR) Contact PSN Canada to compare regions.
CRAFT
Documentary Storytelling Achieves Brand Authenticity
“Brands are leaning into real people, real locations, and real events because audiences want to feel confident that what they are watching actually happened. Authenticity becomes a differentiator, and documentary craft is one of the best ways to earn it.” (LBB)
AI Applied To Filmmaking Planning
“When people hear the phrase “AI production,” they tend to think of text-to-video generative tools like OpenAI’s Sora. Continuum Suite is not that, but instead a system for organizing and coordinating many aspects of a production. Creative development, production co-ordination and animated workflows are all encompassed by the system, which uses AI tools to increase the pace of production.” (Deadline)
Netflix Acquires InterPositive, Ben Affleck Human First AI Filmmaking Startup
“For artists to apply these tools towards telling the stories we dedicate our lives to, they need to be purpose-built to represent and protect all the qualities that make a great story: the nuances of filmmaking, the predictable — and unpredictable — challenges of production environments, the distortion of a lens or the way light shape-shifts across a scene.” (Variety)
InterPositive Solves Last Problem In The Pipeline When Industry Should Solve The First
“The studios that will define the next thirty years of entertainment are not the ones that add AI to their existing pipeline. They are the ones that ask what the pipeline should look like if AI had always been part of it — and then build that.” (Corser)
Screen Industry Readiness For The Future Of Storytelling
“The impossible is dying. The imagination gap is closing. The tools to tell every story that has ever been constrained by the laws of physics, the limits of budget, or the danger of physical execution are arriving with a speed that the industry’s institutional culture is not equipped to absorb. The question is not whether to engage with this transformation. The question is whether to engage with it intelligently.” (Corser)
Top AI Filmmakers in Advertising
“India’s first ever advertising roundtable is back with the Top 1% AI Filmmakers of the industry. Moderator: Roopak Saluja (PSN India), presents some of Indian advertising’s most celebrated names, sharing anecdotes, experiences, secrets, and echoing laughter, in a brutally honest conversation with each other.” (Good Ads Matter) Roopak also joined a panel of Film & TV producers at Content India this month.
Being Human
Rise Of The Hybrid Commercial Producer
“Producers now find themselves guiding conversations that used to be mediated by account teams or agency producers, building trust in real time with clients who may be unfamiliar with production realities.That trust-building is critical.” (Shots)
Boost Creative Performance With Operational Intelligence
“The systems that track production health are optimized for financial and schedule performance. They are not optimized for creative performance. And because of that blind spot, there is an entire category of cost, the creative cost of operational drift, that the industry incurs routinely, invisibly, and without any mechanism for measurement or improvement”. (Corser)
Line Producer Judgement Is Human Differentiator In Antropic Labor Map
“The system is only as useful as the person interpreting its signals. And the person best equipped to interpret them is the one who has been doing this work long enough to have the internal pattern library that tells her when the system is right and when it is surfacing something that context explains away.” (Corser)
“Women are uniquely qualified to meet this moment because above all else, AI needs intentionality and empathy right now. Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI said it himself that AI needs maternal instincts if it’s going to be a force for good. So, how do we close the gap?” (LBB)
Australian Filmmaker Tapped As Innaugural First Nations Strategist
“First Nations stories and contribution to our industry are more important than ever. Rachel’s deep experience across content, education, culture, advocacy and complex organisations makes her uniquely positioned to shape an exciting future for Screen Australia.” (C21Media)
Just The FAQs
How do the latest tax incentives in Mexico and Bulgaria compare? Mexico has introduced a 30% Income Tax (ISR) incentive capped at 40 million pesos ($2.3M) per project, requiring at least 70% domestic suppliers. Meanwhile, Bulgaria has aggressively expanded its appeal by raising its cash rebate cap from 1 million to 5 million EUR per project, offering a 25% cash rebate on eligible expenses.
What is the “ground truth” for filming in Serbia and South Africa right now? While international interest remains, both regions face local hurdles. Serbian filmmakers have raised alarms over a “total freeze” on funding calls, which they describe as state-sponsored censorship. In South Africa, although a modernized co-production treaty with Canada just took effect, the local rebate system is floundering, leading some international productions to shift toward more efficient programs in Malta or Portugal.
With all the industry consolidation, is it getting harder to greenlight projects? Yes. Major mergers, such as the Paramount-Skydance acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, have created a “wait and see” atmosphere. Filmmakers report it is taking longer to get answers on project status as studios become wary of committing significant capital during ownership transitions.
Is AI really ready to take over film production? Not quite. While Netflix’s acquisition of InterPositive shows a commitment to “purpose-built” AI that protects the nuances of filmmaking, current industry consensus is that AI-generated output often fails to meet premium production standards. Experts suggest the real value lies in using AI to streamline the pipeline rather than just cutting costs.
How does PSN help me find a “destination unknown”? PSN acts as a one-stop shop for traveling producers, providing local knowledge on tax rebates, locations, and crew in over 100 countries. We evaluate projects at no added cost to help you determine the most suitable place to film based on your creative and fiscal needs.
See you in Hollywood next week! Our teams await you on film sets worldwide.
Michael
