How the Baltics Are Juggling a Boom in Foreign Productions Like ‘Woman Unknown’ With a Lack of Public Funds

Mid-October, Estonia’s long-awaited next-gen film studio complex Ida Hub, in the country’s eastern region, finally opened for business, and industry guests at Tallinn’s Black Nights Film Festival are invited to tour the facilities Nov. 21-22.

As stressed by Edith Sepp, head of the Estonian Film Institute, the country’s brand-new studio powerhouse, twinned with the Tallinnfilm Studios sound stages planned for 2028, heralds “a whole new era of filmmaking” for Estonia, which has patiently waited to rebuild its film infrastructure from post-Soviet rubble. It took Hollywood and Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” to put the smallest Baltic country on the global production map in 2019.

Ever since Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania introduced their filming incentives more than a decade ago, demand for filming in the Baltics has continued to climb, thanks to top-tier crew, competitive financial tools and varied locations. The Baltics’ enhanced visibility on global screens also coincides with momentum for Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian films and co-productions at major festivals including Sundance (“How to Divorce During the War”), Cannes (“Ulya,” “Vesna”) and Venice (“Woman Unknown”).

Variety has taken stock of each nation’s latest filming benefits, productions shot and challenges ahead.

Estonia: Infrastructure Boost

The opening of the Ida Hub film complex in Ida-Viru County, in Estonia’s most northeastern region, stands as a potential game-changer for the Estonian and Baltic audiovisual business. The $18.2 million project, partly funded by E.U. coin, is a one-stop-shop where state-of-the-art filming facilities, featuring two large sound stages of 1,200 square meters (12,917 square feet) and 2,000 square meters (21,528 square feet), meet training of next-gen professionals and a tech-driven startup incubator.

“Our vision is to establish Ida-Viru as a recognised and trusted production hub in the Baltic region, while creating tangible economic and professional opportunities for Ida-Viru County,” says Teet Kuusmik of the Ida-Viru Investment Agency, one of three partners running the complex with the Ida-Viru Business Centre (IVEK) and Tehnopol.

“We are excited about the possibilities ahead, and very pleased to see growing interest from both the domestic and international market,” adds Kuusmik, mentioning a TV production in negotiation for filming in December and three larger film projects in discussion.

By 2028, another film studio featuring three purpose-built sound stages totaling 2,630 square meters (28,309 square feet), SFX prop rooms, offices and multifunction rooms over five floors is set to rise close to Tallinn Airport. Backed by the local industry, Tallinnfilm Studios, a passion project for Sepp, has started to accept international tenders for its design and construction. Sepp says studios are “not simply buildings where films are made. They create an entire ecosystem around them; they bring investment, create jobs, allow people to specialize and give our own filmmakers opportunities they have not had before. For a small industry, this is our physical home.”

Another key factor boosting filming and co-productions in Estonia was the upping of the country’s cash rebate in April, from 30% to 40%, which had immediate effects. Within two hours, Film Estonia, part of the Estonian Film Institute, received 12 applications worth €5.8 million ($6.4 million) in rebates; another 16 submissions followed between April and October, representing an additional €6.4 million ($7 million), according to Sepp. “These figures speak for themselves,” she says.

Public Coin Shortage

However, for Sepp, Film Estonia’s budget is clearly insufficient to meet the growing demand. Her views are shared by producer Esko Rips, CEO of one of the Baltics’ leading production and servicing houses, Nafta Films, co-producer of the Golden Lion winner and Danish Oscar submission “Woman Unknown.”

“In our experience, decisions [from Film Estonia] are made quickly and the rebate is paid promptly. But the annual cash-rebate budget is limited, so availability can be an issue,” he says, mentioning the higher costs for crew and overall production in Estonia compared to Latvia and Lithuania.

As Estonia’s State Budget for 2027 is being finalized, Sepp hopes that politicians will hear her pledge for Film Estonia’s annual envelope to be upped to €10 million ($11 million). “Times are hard because of the war in Ukraine, no doubt in that. But the economy still needs to grow; otherwise we do not have enough funds to protect Europe,” Sepp says.

Latvia: Home to “Woman Unknown”

Firmly set on the world map when the animated gem “Flow” grabbed an Oscar in 2025, Latvia has since doubled its efforts to attract vital foreign money, to counterbalance a small domestic market and persistent lack of public funding. Most recently, in late September, an entire delegation of Latvian film professionals, including major outfits Nafta Films, Baltic Pine Films, Cinevilla Films and Angels Films Studio, flew to Los Angeles to meet U.S. reps from Netflix, Disney, Lionsgate and Paramount, among others. The Latvian delegation was led by Liene Gulbe, film commissioner and creative industries rep at the Latvian Investment and Development Agency (LIAA), which administers the national cash rebate.

For Rips, the country’s main assets for foreign shoots and co-producers are the possibility of combining the national rebate with the Riga Film Fund’s own incentive, pushing support to up to 50% of eligible local costs. Other selling points are the world-class Cinevilla backlot (the largest in the Baltics), the Riga Film Studios sound stages and LED Unit, Riga’s premier virtual production studio.

Rips, who co-produced “Woman Unknown” with the Scandi giant Nordisk Film in Denmark and Sweden, says his decision to shoot in Latvia rather than in his outfit’s main Estonian hub was driven by three factors: studio availability (Riga Film Studios), Riga’s architecture and historic streets that were a good match for the Copenhagen WWII setting in the film and Latvia’s overall strongest financial package. The producer was able to raise around €2.2 million ($2.4 million) from Latvia, nearly half the film’s overall budget.

Danish producer Mikael Rieks says other determining factors were the highly skilled and like-minded Latvian crew. “‘Woman Unknown’ is a quality auteur feature. It was crucial for us not to compromise on the high production value and [director] May el-Toukhy’s vision. We trusted Nafta Films and built a mutual language,” adds the seasoned producer, who worked earlier with Latvian co-producer Madara Kalnipa on “Boundless” and then contacted her when “Woman Unknown” was in development.

As in Estonia, demand for Latvian cash rebates keeps climbing. In 2025, LIAA paid out more than €3.1 million ($3.4 million) to eligible international projects, a sum set to climb to €6.9 million ($7.6 million) next year, according to Gulbe. 13 international projects were backed in 2025, versus 16 so far this year.

Besides “Woman Unknown,” recent high-profile features partly or fully shot in Latvia take in “Wild, Wild East,” which world premiered in Toronto’s Platform section this year, and “Minotaur,” Cannes Grand Prix winner and French Oscar contender.

Leading Latvian servicing and production banner Forma Pro Films, which partnered with French outfit CG Cinéma on Andreï Zviaguintsev’s “Minotaur,” Kristen Stewart’s “The Chronology of Water” and Kirill Serebrennikov’s “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele,” has other star-studded international co-productions, serviced in-house, to be delivered in 2027: Cary Fukunaga’s thriller “Blood on Snow,” starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Eva Green and Benedict Cumberbatch; Albert Serra’s “Out of This World,” starring Riley Keough and F. Murray Abraham; and Bella Thorne’s directorial debut “Color of Hurt.” “We are looking into 2027 with open heart, sleeves up and ready to work,” says Forma Pro producer Svetlana Punte.

Looking ahead, Dita Rietuma, head of the National Film Centre of Latvia, says the film body’s 2027 budget of approximately €6.6 million ($7.3 million) remains “very limited for a country with an ambitious and internationally recognized film industry.” She sees the additional €1 million ($1.1 million) put forward by the government for 2027 (to be approved in the State Budget) as “a first step, rather than a solution to the structural underfunding of Latvian cinema.” The challenge now, she says, is to turn Latvia’s momentum on the world stage into sustainable development for the local industry.

Lithuania: Record Foreign Shoots

In 2025, Lithuania registered an all-time high volume of international projects (19, against 11 in 2024) that tapped into the 30% local tax incentive scheme, which functions as a private tax shelter, unlike the Estonian and Latvian cash rebates.

In terms of investment, a record €25 million ($27.7 million) was channeled into productions via the tax incentive for a total spend of €85.7 million ($95 million). “Foreign productions benefitting from the scheme spent nearly €56 million ($62.1 million) in Lithuania, also a record amount,” says Deimantas Saladžius, head of production and industry at the Lithuanian Film Centre.

Among the biggest foreign shoots in 2025 was Sony Pictures Television’s “Star City,” the Apple TV+ “For All Mankind” spinoff series, serviced locally by Baltic Film Services, which secured the largest grant of €6.9 million ($7.6 million) from the tax scheme.

Meanwhile, 21 co-productions worth €12 million ($13.3 million) in local spend received €3.6 million ($3.9 million) from the incentive. “Beyond the numbers, we see international co-productions as an important opportunity for Lithuanian filmmakers to access larger financing structures, exchange creative expertise and reach a wider international audience,” adds Saladžius.

Pointing to a potential critical infrastructure gap that might curtail further growth in inward investment and filming activity, the film chief describes the government-backed planning of a new large-scale film studio in Vilnius as “an important step towards strengthening Lithuania’s international competitiveness.”

Lithuania’s first-ever city-level film fund, the Vilnius Film Fund, also enjoyed a rocket start between 2025 and 2026, doubling its submissions from seven to 14 and approved projects from four to eight in a year, according to Jurate Pazikaite, film commissioner and head of the Vilnius Film Office and Film Fund. This year, eight co-productions tapped into the fund’s €150,000 ($166,300) budget.

Recent Lithuanian films and co-productions backed by the Vilnius Film Fund take in M Films’ “How to Divorce During the War” and the upcoming Spanish pic “Pinkala,” as well as Studio Uljana Kim’s “Dice-Ching-O-Mat,” vying for best Baltic film at the Black Nights Film Festival.

As for Vilnius, the city featured in “Chernobyl” hosted 65 commercials and 22 Lithuanian and international features and TV productions in 2025, including the U.S. sci-fi show “Star City,” which employed around 140 Lithuanian crew members on top of local actors. “The project demonstrated both the city’s architectural versatility and its ability to accommodate ambitious productions,” says Pazikaite.