Co-production funds run by the Berlin and Rotterdam film festivals and a new day-and-date initiative are among new projects by supported by the European Commission (EC).
A total of €1.3m ($1.8m) has been made available to support five international co-production funds backing European producers for the production and circulation of international film projects annually.
Funding ranging between €70,000 and €300,000 ($95,000 to $407,000) have been allocated to Turins’s TFL Distribution, the Sarajevo City of Film Fund, Rotterdam’s HBF+Europe, the Berlinale’s World Cinema Fund Europe (WCF Europe), and IDFA’s Bertha Fund Europe.
According to the EC, the aim of this funding strand is to “increase the European dimension of the funds and their access for companies from all countries participating in the MEDIA sub-programme”.
In the case of the WCF Europe project, for example, the fund will extend its remit to support not only German, but also European producers wanting to work with producers from the WCF regions of Latin America, Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, South East Asia and the Caucasus.
In addition, a distribution support will now be available to projects which are to be released by two European distributors with a distributor from a WCF region.
Day-and-date project
Three international sales agents - Doc&Film International, The Match Factory, and Memento Films International - are among the partners of a new day-and-date project, Streams Day & Date, which launches tomorrow (June 19).
Agnès Jaoui’s Under The Rainbow (Au bout du conte) will be the first film handled by the initiative, which is coordinated by the EuroVoD network and has been co-financed by the EC’s preparatory action for the circulation of European films in the digital era.
Jaoui will attend the film’s premiere in Barcelona on Thursday evening, followed by a wide release in cinemas, on VoD and DVD in Spain.
It is probably not a coincidence that June 19 is the last day of this year’s CineEurope exhibitors convention in the Catalan capital and the Under The Rainbow premiere will be held at Europa Cinemas member cinema Cines Verdi during the convention’s final night’s awards ceremony.
Streams Day & Date plans to release four European titles of various genres and nationalities throughout 2014 and 2015 in Spain, Belgium, Bulgaria, and Ireland.
The initiative’s partners also include France’s Blaq Out, Spain’s Cameo, Bulgaria’s Art Fest, film marketing strategist Mathias Noschi’s company Alpha Panda.
UK projects receive TV support
Five UK projects are among a total of 22 European TV productions – four animation films, five TV movies and 12 documentaries - which have received almost €5.4m ($7.3m) production support as part of the MEDIA sub-programme’s new TV programming strand.
The largest single amount - €1m ($1.36m) - was awarded to the European TV series Barbarians: The Last of the Pink Panthers, which is to be produced by the UK’s Warp Films and France’s Haut et Court for Sky Atlantic and Canal Plus.
Other successful UK applicants were Springshot Productions’ documentary Europe: Who Do You Think EU Are? and animation films by Voodoodog (Swan Lake), Coolabi Productions (Scream Street), and Beakus Ltd (Toggle).
In addition, production support has been granted to documentaries by Germany’s Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion (Falciani’s List), Polish production house Chilli Productions (The Queen of Spades) and Austria’s Interspot Film (Maximilian of Mexico – Dreams of Power).
Swiss update
Subject to a greenlight from its parliament, the Swiss government’s so-called “MEDIA compensatory measures” could come into effect on July 1.
Around CHF5m ($5.6m) would be made available for six funding programmes for Swiss producers, distributors, as well as the organisers of further training projects, festivals and markets.
The MEDIA Desk Suisse has published online application forms and issued deadlines for the various programmes, the first being at the beginning of July for automatic and selective distribution support.
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