Croatia is becoming an increasingly popular filming location.
After more than a month, French action thriller “Lake” finished shooting in Croatia. More than half of the crew were Croatian film professionals, from cinematographers and set designers to production assistants and stuntmen. The story about naval commandos who explore long forgotten secret and discover boxes with gold bullion at the bottom of a lake, directed by Steven Quale and produced by Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp production company, was shot in Croatia thanks to the incentive program for film productions of Croatian Audiovisual Centre (HAVC), reports Novi List on August 7, 2015.
While the story is set in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the shooting mostly took place in Zagreb, Istria, Karlovac and Ogulin, on Lokvarsko Lake in Gorski Kotar, and on Lake Čiče near Velika Gorica. The cast was led by experienced J. K. Simmons, known for his roles in films “Spider-Man” and “Juno”, and TV series “Oz”.
Producer Raphaël Benoliel has praised the crew with whom he worked in Croatia, as well as the support of the military and cities in which they were shooting. “We enjoyed working in Croatia, the crew was professional, flexible and dedicated. We were not able to see the whole country, but we had the opportunity to explore a variety of locations, from the smallest town in the world Hum to the Zagreb Fair, where we were able to recreate a city destroyed in a war.”
Since 2012, the program for subsidizing film and TV production has attracted 17 international productions, which have spent more than 165 million kuna in Croatia. It is estimated that this year that amount will pass the 200 million kuna mark.
In the first half of 2015, there were eight productions, with an additional seven expected in the remaining part of the year. Five projects have already completed filming on locations in Croatia (“Lake”, American TV series “Dig”, Indian film “Fan”, the third season of the series “The Limits of Crimes”, and Belgian film “Upstream by River”). Currently in production is animated documentary “Chris the Swiss” by Swiss director Anja Kofmel, while the late summer will see the shooting of the trilogy about Winnetou, the sixth season of “Game of Thrones” and the children’s film “When My Father Turned into a Bush” by Dutch director Nicole van Kilsdonk. In the second half of the year, shooting will start for Italian film “Uncertain Border” by Isabella Sandri, Danish film “Second Best” by Mikkel Serup, German TV movie “Branka Marić, Devil from Split,” the French-Croatian biographical film about Jacques Cousteau and the new season of the Italian TV series “Gomorra”.
