Oakland’s Budget Woes Might Kill Off a Promising Film Initiative

Oakland has never exactly been viewed as a filmmakers’ paradise. Despite the success of a handful of homegrown, Oakland-filmed standouts, like Fruitvale Station and Sorry to Bother You, Bay Area creatives with film or television aspirations usually face an inevitable choice: They have to go somewhere else.

In July, the Oakland City Council unanimously passed a new initiative that was meant to help change that: The Oakland Film Initiative would provide a 10–15% refund to filmmakers on qualified local spending on purchased or rented items, contracted services and wages for Oakland residents. The idea was to help subsidize the cost of shooting a movie in Oakland — and, in that way, provide an incentive for stories that take place in The Town to actually get filmed there, instead of in Atlanta, Vancouver or elsewhere.

The rebate program was widely celebrated by Bay Area culture makers when it was first announced. But now, Oakland’s budget woes have put the program in peril before it ever had a chance to get off the ground. When delayed payments on the sale of the Coliseum triggered Oakland’s “contingency budget” — and a $63 million shortfall — earlier this fall, the film initiative was one of programs slated to be cut.

That would be a big mistake, say local film industry advocates like Sam Bempong, a lead organizer for the East Bay Film Collective, which helped craft the film rebate initiative.

“We’ve already got productions that are willing to come here, businesses that want to relocate here. So we know that this [program] is revenue generating,” Bempong says. If the city reneges on its promise, not only would it be forfeiting the millions of dollars those film companies would have spent in the local economy, but Oakland’s reputation would also take a hit.

“You’re going to lose face,” Bempong says, arguing that high-profile film and TV productions would be even less likely to want to work with the city in the future.

The Collective is asking supporters of the program — and of Oakland’s creative and cultural scenes — to contact their City Councilmember ahead of the City Council meeting on Monday, Dec. 9, when the future of the film initiative is expected to be on the agenda.

According to Bempong, the idea for the rebate program came about a couple of years ago when Bay Area creatives wanted to film a number of big-budget television series in Oakland but wound up deciding not to. The short answer for why, Bempong says, is that other cities offered much better financial incentives.

“You have to make it make sense from a financial production standpoint to get [filmmakers] to come here and spend their money,” Bempong says. “But once they’re here, you’re creating an inclusive cultural economy where creatives thrive, where they can use local catering services, dry cleaning services and truck drivers. It is an economy that creates jobs across multiple sectors and spreads money in a way that no other sector does.”

But without any financial incentives, Bempong believes there’s no way for Oakland to build itself up as a vibrant filmmaking hub. And then all of the Bay Area’s own talented homegrown filmmakers and other creatives wind up moving away.

That was the case for Grace Porras, who left the Bay Area to pursue a 15-year career as a television producer in New York and Los Angeles before finally returning to Oakland last year because, she says, “I really felt like there was a possibility for us to create a robust film scene here.” To help make that a reality, she co-founded the East Bay Film Collective along with comedian W. Kamau Bell, actor-producer Rafael Casal and others.

Quoting Oakland filmmaker Niema Jordan, Bempong says, “We all came together to say, ‘How do we make home an option?’”

The film rebate initiative was one of the collective’s first big steps toward making that goal a reality. In the months since Oakland City Council approved the program, Porras and Bempong say they’ve been in active conversations with producers who are interested in filming in Oakland — assuming they’d be eligible for the rebate incentive. “We’ve gathered letters of intent from producers and productions who would spend upwards of $10 million in our local economy,” Porras says.

“There’s money in hand. They want to spend it,” Bempong says. “Are we going to make it so they can spend it here?”

Bempong stresses that she understands the series of difficult choices Oakland faces now that the contingency budget has kicked in, including potential cuts to police and fire services. “We don’t want the city to suffer,” she says. In fact, the rebate initiative’s supporters aren’t asking the city to fund the program out of the contingency budget. Instead, Bempong says, they’re just asking City Council to restore the program’s funding as soon as the money from the Coliseum sale comes through.

“We’re not asking for any money that wasn’t already promised us, or isn’t already coming into the city, in a way that would stop it from being spent elsewhere,” she says.

For now, the East Bay Film Collective is asking supporters of Oakland’s creative scenes to call or email their City Councilmember in advance of the Council’s meeting on Monday, Dec. 9, at 9:30 a.m. — they’ve provided a script for callers and letter writers to follow. Supporters can also go to City Hall (1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland) to attend that City Council meeting and offer a public comment in favor of the film rebate initiative.

No matter what happens with the City Council meeting, though, the Collective isn’t giving up on the rebate program — or its ongoing work to build up the Bay Area film scene. “We’ll find another way to fund it,” Bempong says.