Will budget cuts ruin Oakland’s chance to again be a major film setting?

With Oakland facing a roughly $80 million hole in the city budget, a heralded new program to bring film productions to town is on the chopping block.

The Film Rebate Incentive Program, an effort to lure film and television with rebates on production costs, was approved unanimously in July by the City Council. The $600,000 initiative was left out of a contingency budget that was adopted because the city has not yet received anticipated payments from the $125 million sale of the Oakland Coliseum, which were scheduled to begin in September. 

City spokesperson Jean Welsh said the council will consider whether to reinstate funding for the program at its Tuesday budget meeting.  

At an October council meeting, film advocates lamented the potential loss. “If we reverse course now, we risk damaging our reputation, squandering the momentum we’ve gained, and potentially losing the chance to position Oakland as a premier film-friendly destination for years to come,” said Sam Bempong, a representative of the East Bay Film Collective, which proposed the program over a year ago.

The program would offer a 10% rebate on certain film productions, and provide additional rebates for productions that hire local residents in areas with high unemployment. The benefits could be combined with the Film & Television Tax Credit from California’s Film Commission to provide up to 45% back on productions.

Netflix and others

Advocates argue that Oakland had lost its luster as a film hub, with film permits falling by two-thirds from 2019 to 2023, and is failing to compete with cities like San Francisco that offer lucrative incentives for filming. More productions would bring tourism to the East Bay, as well as jobs, they argue.

“Imagine a world where people can stay in Oakland, have good paying jobs, and most importantly, DON’T HAVE TO MOVE TO L. A.,” author, documentarian and comedian W. Kamau Bell posted on Instagram shortly after the program was adopted. Supporters also include Warriors star Stephen Curry and directors Boots Riley and Cheryl Dunye.

Ten percent of the fund would be reserved for smaller productions with budgets between $50,000 and $250,000 budgets, intended, according to Councilmember Carroll Fife, to support documentarians and local artists. But the bulk of the fund is meant to encourage production companies with multimillion-dollar projects to invest in local businesses. Bempong told the council that the East Bay Film Collective is talking with five multimillion-dollar feature films and that a representative from Netflix had recently asked about the funds. 

The council faces a slew of hard choices, with $63 million in cuts on the line. “We need to figure out what we can give up, what we live without,” said Brad Johnson, the city’s budget administrator at the October meeting. Top of mind, added City Administrator Jestin Johnson, is saving “extremely critical” programs relating to public safety. 

Famous Oakland films

Although Oakland has been home to a number of high-profile productions, including “Sorry to Bother You” and “Blindspotting” in 2018, “Fruitvale Station” in 2013 and and “Moneyball” in 2011, the popularity of Oakland as a filming location has significantly decreased. Even Oakland native director Ryan Coogler opted for Oakland look-alike sets in Atlanta for Marvel’s 2018 “Black Panther” movie. 

In 2019, Oakland issued 247 film production permits, compared with 74 in 2023. 

A city-commissioned report in May attributed the decline to the Bay Area’s high cost of living, as well as “the lack of local film infrastructure such as studios and sound stages.” The report pointed to the success of similar programs in San Francisco and other U.S. cities, where the program’s costs were outweighed by economic benefits. 

At the October council meeting, Bempong, who declined an interview request, asked the city to “not repeat mistakes of the past.”

In 2011, with Oakland facing a $58 million budget deficit, then-Mayor Jean Quan eliminated two full-time positions from the Oakland Film Office, which worked with film productions looking to set up shop in the city. The office worked closely with the Oakland Film Center, a community of filmmaking businesses at the former Oakland Army Base, which was given a 90-day eviction notice in 2012 for the land’s redevelopment. This left the businesses, which included set-builders and equipment rental services, scrambling, and destabilized the backbone of filmmaking in Oakland. 

Oakland filmmaker and multimedia artist Adrian L. Burrell worries the $50,000 production minimum to receive the rebate is unachievable for most emerging filmmakers. But he also has hoped the program would establish a stable foundation for a thriving film industry that generates opportunities for filmmakers and creatives, specifically “Black and brown folks from the city of Oakland to make sustainable living for ourselves and our families.” 

“The more opportunities there are to make films and tell stories in Oakland, the more storytellers and filmmakers that are going to stay in Oakland, the more community we’re going to have and opportunities for collaboration,” he said.

The survival of the program, Bempong told the council, is not just about movies. “It’s about sustaining Oakland’s creative economy, generating long-term revenue, and telling a new story of resilience,” she said, noting that the city’s budget issues are unlikely to go away anytime soon — but its chance to stimulate a thriving film hub just might. 

(Top photo: scene from the movie “Sorry to Bother You.” All images are screenshots from the movies’ promotional trailers.)

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