PRESIDENT BONNIE KING

GREETINGS FILM FLORIDA MEMBERS, STAKEHOLDERS, AND FRIENDS ~

I hope you had a wonderful Holiday Season and a Happy New Year. First, I wanted to thank our members for their continued support. Film Florida is funded entirely by our members so our ability to advocate, promote, and provide important professional development and networking opportunities is completely dependent upon the support of our members. Without that support from our members, we are not able to provide the representation that we do throughout the year. Our membership continues to grow which allows us to be more active and we are grateful for the confidence our members have shown in our work.

Although some of our legislative efforts get more attention, Film Florida, at its core, is a marketing and professional development organization. Our top priority has been and will always be to market the state of Florida, the industry, and our members as a way of bringing more projects, jobs and money to Florida to help grow and strengthen the industry. Regardless of the state of incentives in Florida, or elsewhere, our focus will always be to convey the message that Florida is open for business and interested in competing for high-wage jobs in the film, television and digital media industry.

That said, because our membership, and the industry overall in Florida, has said legislative issues are important to them, we continue to focus on those efforts as well. Florida's independent film and commercial production continue to thrive in Florida, along with the growing tech clusters throughout the state, and we look forward to further enhancing those aspects of our industry. There are now 7 counties (Broward, Duval, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Pinellas, and Sarasota Counties, all members of Film Florida), and 2 cities (Miami Beach, North Miami) with some form of program to enhance production work in their region. These local programs are seeing excellent return on investment with the increased number of projects in their regions.

From the statewide perspective, the 2020 Legislative Session begins on January 14 and is scheduled to end on March 13, 2020 and Film Florida is advocating for bills already filed for session. SB 530 from Senator Joe Gruters (R- Sarasota) and HB 497 from Rep James Buchanan (R- Sarasota) would create the Film, Television, and Digital Media Targeted Rebate Program. SB 530 has already passed favorably out of one committee. Film Florida, along with our Government Relations firm, is making efforts daily to get the bills on additional committee agendas. While a bill has not passed in recent years, great progress has been made with building relationships with legislators. Our membership has done a tremendous job, on a completely volunteer basis, meeting with legislators to help educate them on the importance of the film, television and digital media industry. Our goal continues to be to build relationships with legislators that put our industry in the best position for success in Tallahassee. Notable progress has been made the last two years in significantly building momentum, engaging in encouraging conversation and garnering positive media coverage for the industry. With the continued help and support from groups like Florida TaxWatch, Associated Industries of Florida (AIF), and the Florida Chamber of Commerce just to name a few, we will continue to push legislators to pass a program that helps the industry while provides a positive return on investment to Florida taxpayers.