If you’ve worked in Missouri’s film industry, you’ve probably heard the name Film in MO floating around. Maybe you saw a post. Maybe someone mentioned it on set. But if you’re like a lot of folks, you might not totally know what it is or why it matters.
Film in MO is a legislative advocacy group made up of crew members, small businesses, production companies, and film offices across the state (us included), all working together to make sure Missouri is in the running when productions are deciding where to film. Most importantly, they’re the reason Missouri now has a transferable film tax credit. That win, in the summer of 2023, put us back on the film industry map.
But here’s the thing: the credit we passed, though a great start, isn’t perfect. There are still things that need to be tweaked if we want to compete for the kinds of big-budget productions that bring jobs, opportunities, and long-term investment.
Want an example?
Take Sinners, a new (amazing) film from Ryan Coogler set in the Mississippi Delta town of Clarksdale. An area that has an incredibly unique landscape and look. You’d think when setting a film in such a specific environment, it would’ve made sense to shoot it there, but they didn’t. They filmed in Louisiana. Why?
“It came down to two things,” Coogler said.
“Number one: tax credits. It’s a big movie, big actors, big budgets, and tax credits mean a lot when you’re in that situation. I think when we came to check in with Mississippi, that tax credit had been maxed out.”
That’s exactly the kind of situation Missouri could face if we don’t raise our credit cap. If we hit our limit early, we’ll have to start turning away productions that want to be here, and those jobs and dollars will go somewhere else.
The second piece that impacted Coogler’s decision was infrastructure. “A lot of the film takes place in stages that we built, and we needed places that had sound stages that could fit the Juke Joint and some of the other things we built … That’s the reality of it.”
That kind of infrastructure takes time and serious investment. But people don’t build stages or expand post houses if they think the credit is temporary. Right now, Missouri’s credit has a sunset (expiration date) of Dec. 31st of 2029, which makes long-term planning risky.
This is exactly why Film in MO needs your support.
When you become a member of Film in MO, your dollars go directly toward hiring a professional lobbyist who spends every legislative session in Jefferson City making sure our industry’s needs are heard, understood, and prioritized. That includes pushing to:
- Extend or eliminate the credit’s sunset, so investors can build here with confidence
- Raise the cap, so we’re not turning away major projects
- Make the program stronger, smarter, and more competitive – because this is a business, and Missouri needs to stay in the game
Change won’t happen overnight, and no tax credit program is ever going to be perfect, but if we want to see more productions in Missouri, if we want steady work in our home state, and if we want to build something that lasts, then this is where it starts.
Click below to learn more and become a member of Film in MO.