Funding programme

Creative Europe is the EU’s funding programme for providing support to the culture and audiovisual sectors.

Read more about Creative Europe.

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Call overview

This call aims to support the cooperation among European production companies that are developing works with a strong international audience potential.

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Objectives

Within the specific objective of promoting competitiveness, scalability, cooperation, innovation and sustainability, including through mobility in the European audiovisual sector, one of the priorities of the MEDIA Strand is:

• To nurture talents, competence and skills and to stimulate cross-border cooperation, mobility and innovation in the creation and production of European audiovisual works, encouraging collaboration across Member States with different audiovisual capacities.
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The MEDIA Strand shall provide support for the following measures:

• Development of audiovisual works by European independent production companies, covering a variety of formats (such as feature films, short films, series, documentaries, narrative video games) and genres, and targeting diverse audiences, including children and young people.

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Expected results

• Increased collaboration at development stage between European production companies from different countries and from different markets and consequently an increased number of co-productions.
• Increased quality, feasibility, cross-border potential and market value of selected projects.
• A stronger position on European and international markets for companies selected under European co-development.

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Activities to be funded

The European co-development action shall provide support to the development of a single project for commercial exploitation intended for cinema release, television broadcasting or commercial exploitation on digital platforms or a multi-platform environment in the following categories: animation, creative documentary or fiction. The project must be co-developed by at least two European independent production companies, having signed a co-development agreement specifying the division of tasks and the collaboration on creative aspects.

The aim is to provide funds to audiovisual production companies to develop works with high creative value and cultural diversity and wide cross-border exploitation potential. Companies are encouraged to develop strong and innovative collaborations at creative and financing level and to develop strategies for marketing and distribution from the outset of the development phase thus improving the potential to reach audiences at a European and international level.

Special attention will be given to applications presenting adequate strategies to ensure more sustainable and more environmentally-respectful industry and to ensure gender balance, inclusion, diversity and representativeness.

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Eligibility

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

+ be legal entities (public or private bodies)

+ be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e Creative Europe Participating Countries:

• EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
• non-EU countries: listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Creative Europe Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature

+ be established in one of the countries participating fully in the MEDIA strand of the Creative Europe Programme and be owned directly or indirectly, wholly or by majority participation, by nationals from such countries. When a company is publicly listed, the location of the stock exchange will in principle determine its nationality
+ be independent European audiovisual production companies
+ the coordinator must be able demonstrate recent experience in producing internationally distributed works.

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Budget

The available call budget is EUR 6 000 000.

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Consortium composition

Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of at least two applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities), which complies with the following conditions:

• minimum two entities, having their legal seat in at least two different eligible countries
• the coordinator and the partner(s) cannot be affiliated entities.

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Duration

Projects should not normally exceed 30 months (extensions are possible, if duly justified and through an amendment).