The Association of Film Commissioners International (AFCI) today announced its initial program topics and opened registration for its 40th annual Cineposium conference slated for September 22 - 24, 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia.
 
Building Your Business is the focus for this year's event that will give attention to Infrastructure - How to Build It, Maintain It, and Manage Crew Development to Meet its Needs. Barnes & Thornburg, LLP and Oz Publishing, Inc. are the Atlanta hosts for 2016.
 
Cineposium is AFCI's marquee annual event designed exclusively for film commissioners, the event provides an opportunity for directed education and training in addition to face-to-face access to industry leaders.  AFCI Members, TV and film executives, and production professionals from more than 30 countries attend the three-day summit each year.
 
The infrastructure focused program topics for Cineposium 2016 include:
  • Building Consensus
  • Building Facilities
  • Building Crew Base
  • Building a Network
  • Building Bridges
 
The AFCI will also present a Case Study on Senoia, Georgia, the suburban Atlanta town that serves as the on-location set for the AMC Network series, "The Walking Dead."  
 
Early registration opens today, June 1 through July 8, 2016.
 
Visit AFCI.org/Cineposium to additional information about and to register for the event.
 
WHY ATLANTA?
"Many feature film and television productions turn to Atlanta to fulfill their production needs," said AFCI Executive Director, Kevin Clark on why the organization chose this year's conference location. "Many Marvel films are shot there, the studio production facilities are extremely successful in the market, and the city and State of Georgia has turned into an incredible hub in the last several years." 
 
The Georgia Entertainment Investment Act has helped Georgia’s production industry increase tenfold since 2008, thanks to a state tax credit of up to 30 percent for qualified productions.  
 
Additionally, a recent Feature Film Study by Film L.A. Inc., an AFCI member reports that Georgia ranks fifth in the world behind California, New York, The United Kingdom and Canada in film production. The report also indicated the state's lucrative incentive program as a draw for productions filming in the state resulting in an estimated $216.5 Million spent in the state in the 2014 findings.
 
"We will be showing off Georgia and its growing infrastructure which really puts the state on the map as far as production. This will be a great gathering to discuss the latest trends around the world in the film and television industry,” said Stephen Weizenecker, an entertainment attorney with the Atlanta office of Barnes & Thornburg, LLP who along with Tia Powell, president and publisher of Oz Publishing, Inc. submitted the winning pitch to AFCI bringing the globally rotating conference to Atlanta.  
 
For additional information about Cineposium, updates on program topics, speakers and registration information, visit AFCI.org/Cineposium.

About Cineposium: Cineposium is AFCI's marquee annual event designed exclusively for film commissioners and provides an opportunity for directed education and training in addition to face-to-face access to industry leaders.  

About AFCI
Founded in 1975, AFCI is comprised of more than 300 film commissions in 45 countries on six continents; it is the leading resource on the planet for location shooting. AFCI Members are devoted to providing infrastructure and incentive support resources to the film and television industry that attribute to billions of dollars annually across the globe. - AFCI.org

About Barnes & Thornburg, LLP: With more than 600 attorneys and other legal professionals, Barnes & Thornburg is one of the largest law firms in the United States. The firm serves clients worldwide from 13 offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Delaware, Indiana, Los Angeles, Michigan, Minneapolis, Ohio, and Washington, D.C. - BTLaw.com
 
About Oz Publishing, Inc.: Oz publishing, Inc., a leader in Creative Communications industry publications brings their world of print to world of technology. It's everything you need to see in the worlds of film, video, television broadcast and production, photography, graphic art and design, printing, and pre-press, meeting and event services, and multimedia. - OzOnline.tv