Five co-production funds supported by Creative Europe

The most recent results from the MEDIA sub-programme’s International Co-production Fund scheme have been published, with five funds sharing a total of €1,500,000. These grants will be redistributed to producers to support either the production or distribution of international co-productions. Each supported fund has its own objectives, eligibility criteria and application procedure and interested producers should apply directly to the organisation that manages the fund.

The five funds that continue to receive funding through his scheme are:

• HBF+Europe (Netherlands), which helps to support co-productions with Africa, Asia, Latin America and certain countries in Eastern Europe
• Torino Film Lab Production Fund & Audience Design Fund (Italy), which supports innovative audience engagement strategies
• IDFA Bertha Fund Europe (Netherlands), which works to stimulate documentary co-production in developing countries
• Berlinale World Cinema Fund Europe (Germany), which aims to strengthen trans-European and international co-operation strategies
• ACM Distribution (France), which supports and promotes the distribution and international circulation of ACM films co-produced with a non-European country

UPDATE: at the end of 2016 another fund was added to the above list, Sørfond+ (Norway), supports co-productions between European film producers and producers from developing countries.

To date, 21 projects have been supported by these funds. The three UK co-productions that have benefited include:

• Cemetery of Splendour, a co-production between the UK’s Illuminations Films and production companies based in Norway, France, Germany, Thailand, Malaysia, USA and Korea, which received support from the World Cinema Fund
• Freedom Field, co-produced by the UK’s SDI Productions and Lybia’s Huna Productions, supported by the IDFA Bertha Fund
• In the Last Days of the City, a German/UK/Egypt co-production supported by Torino Film Lab.

Read the full set of results on the European Commission’s website.

Image: Cemetery of Splendour by Apichatpong Weerasethakul via New Wave Films.