Mississippi Film Office celebrates 50th anniversary

CANTON, Miss. (WLBT) – The Mississippi Movie Workplace is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this yr.

“I simply discovered Canton to be a really heat, embracing group, and significantly supportive of the movie,” Andrew Stevens mentioned.

Stevens is the producer of Discovering Religion, a Christian film. It’s the third movie that he has shot in Canton.

“With a venerable movie historical past of getting shot my canine skip, oh, Brother, The place Artwork Thou had time to kill right here,” he mentioned.

“I began within the workplace 25 years in the past, and at that time, we have been fortunate to have one characteristic movie per yr. And final yr, we had 19 characteristic movies,” Nina Parikah mentioned.

The hospitality from the folks of the magnolia state is the highest motive why Parikah, director of the Mississippi Movie Workplace, says producers from the world over proceed to carry their tasks to the state.

“I bear in mind in Canton, you already know, the native radio station, they might get on there and say, you already know, we want x, y, and z, and that group would come out and share the issues that they’ve that may be good for props,” Parikah mentioned. “So The communities come out in a means that I feel doesn’t occur in most locations. So these producers really feel embraced in Mississippi in these small communities.”

She additionally says the movie trade brings in main financial progress for the state.

“So, in my half of the lifetime of our workplace, and that’s grown considerably, we see cash being spent in communities everywhere in the state and all sectors of the financial panorama and Mississippi when a movie is right here,” Parikah defined.

When a movie is shot in Mississippi, money rebates are provided to administrators in the event that they meet sure necessities. One requirement is that 20% of the manufacturing crew on payroll should be Mississippi residents.

“It’s a financially advantageous, advantageous state to shoot within the state provides an excessive amount of variety not solely by way of human assets, however by way of geography with the Gulf Coast, and Central Mississippi,” Stevens mentioned.

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