AVEC (Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit) Seminar 2025
Wednesday 26th March, 2.30pm – 4.00pm
In-person, at Film City Glasgow, 401 Govan Rd, Glasgow, G51 2QJ
Join FOCUS for this seminar on Wednesday 26th March 2025 with Saffery to explore Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit (AVEC) and how it can be best utilised by indie companies. Andy Paterson and additional panellists will join after the presentation for a Q & A session.
The seminar will be delivered by Isla MacGillivray, Partner at Saffery LLP, and will provide an overview of the key characteristics of both standard AVEC and enhanced AVEC announced last year. Companies will be able to claim the enhanced AVEC from HMRC starting 1 April 2025, for costs incurred from 1 April 2024.
Capacity is limited, so early registration is recommended. We suggest prioritising the most appropriate person from your team to attend initially, with additional places being allocated subject to availability.
About the speakers:
Isla MacGillivray is Head of Film and TV at Saffery.
Isla has worked within the creative industry sector for over 10 years. She provides specialist financial, accounting, audit and taxation advice to a range of clients in the sector.
Her client base includes film, television and video game production & distribution companies, commissioning producers and rights owners across a range of large US and UK studios to small budget independent producers as well as other corporate entities which operate in the film, TV and video games industries.
Isla is regularly invited to lecture and sit on expert panels at various industry events across the UK and internationally, including London, Edinburgh, Cannes and Los Angeles.
Andy Paterson's award-winning films include Girl With A Pearl Earring and The Railway Man. His first film, the cult Scottish classic, Restless Natives, was re-released in 2021 and is about to start a new life as a stage musical.
The Railway Man, based on Eric Lomax’s account of his experiences on the notorious Thai/Burma Death Railway in WW2, starred Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman. Girl With A Pearl Earring, starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth, was nominated for 10 BAFTAs and 3 Oscars.
Other productions include Tigers, the true story of a whistleblower who took on a major pharmaceuticals corporation, Hilary and Jackie, which won Oscar nominations for its stars, Emily Watson and Rachel Griffiths and the Oscar-winning Restoration, starring Robert Downey Jr, Hugh Grant and Meg Ryan.
He launched the campaign for an enhanced tax credit for independent films in 2017 and was part of the Pact team which finally delivered the IFTC seven years later. In 2024 he co-founded Virtual Circle, a partnership with Dimension Studio and Vue Cinemas, to deliver ambitious British independent films for cinema audiences worldwide.
Capacity is limited, so early registration is recommended. We suggest prioritising the most appropriate person from your team to attend initially, with additional places being allocated subject to availability.
If you are planning to attend and have any access requirements, please contact the FOCUS team about this as soon as you can: hello@filmcityfutures.com