Written by Shona Smith on Oct 3, 2018. Posted in On Location

Killing Eve doubled Bucharest for Moscow and Paris

Bucharest hosted the longest international shoots for Killing Eve produced by Sid Gentle Films Ltd. Alien Films serviced the two week shoot in Romania which doubled for Moscow and provided additional scenes set in Parisian backstreets.

The production company focused mainly on places in Bucharest city centre and suburbs in locations that could double Moscow, getting a real production value without having to go to Moscow. Oana Prata from Alien Film notes that “Bucharest has been proven to be a very versatile location as it has scale and a great architecture” and there are districts “quite similar in architecture in terms of the areas that they were looking for”. Location scouting was crucial, but she notes that “with good prep everything is possible”. While on location, producers decided that suburbs of Bucharest could also double for the suburbs of Paris.

Much of the two-week shoot was located in Bucharest city centre and surrounding suburbs but production also utilised the small town of Snagov. The town 40 km north of Bucharest was used for both interior and exterior shoots.

The eight-episode mini-series filmed throughout Europe in Paris, London, Tuscany and Berlin. Because the show needed continuity, fifty crew members accompanied the production to Romania. An additional local 122 professionals were part of the crew for Killing Eve. Whilst appearing on Jimmy Kimmel the show’s star Sandra Oh commented that the Romanian crew’s ingenuity made them among her favourite to work with on the shoot.

In terms of logistics, a convoy of 15 trucks travelled from the UK to join an additional 35 trucks for use during the shoot in Romania. On arrival, Alien Film had made sure that everything was ready so that production could begin the next day. An intense period of preparation took place in the weeks before the Killing Eve team arrived, when “all the papers, approvals, locations were done, locked and solved” so that “at the time of the shooting there was no more time spent with solving issues. Everything was in place”.

Romania currently offers a 35% cash rebate for filming from a EUR50 million fund. If productions spend 20% of their total budget shooting in the country and promote the country in a favourable way, a supplementary 10% is added, bringing the potential incentive to 45%

Photo Credits: Sid Gentle Films/Robert Viglasky