26/10/2012 - Public funding has become unavoidable for all sectors and levels of the European audiovisual industry

What projects to fund? How to fund them? And at what level? How to prioritize support programs or type of funding? Even though the European Commission has unified to a certain extent, regulations on national levels, each fund shapes its own policy and draws up its own set of rules. It is up to producers to connect all these funding programs and mechanisms with each other, in order to match budget and financing in a mutually-satisfactory manner for all concerned. An exhausting and expensive exercise!

In this context, FOCAL has developed a series of 4 workshops specifically dedicated to people working within public funds.

The second workshop will take place in Retz (next to Vienna) from 7th to 9th of November 2012. Thirty participants have confirmed their presence, representing 28 European public funds (national and regional) from 20 countries.

The topics to be discussed during this second session will concentrate on Financing Strategies. They will address all long-term issues to do with the role of public funds, their financial frameworks, involvement in coproductions, national and regional funding complementarities, as well as with the diversity of voices within their decision-making process.

The first Workshop - Strategies & Initiatives for the Film Funders - took place in Sweden at the end of April. Thirty participants representing 26 funds from 19 countries attended that unanimously appreciated event. What emerged during this First Workshop is the participants' desire to take time to share, experience and exchange, and to use this “moment in time” as a source of inspiration, discussion and reflection.

MEDICI is organized by FOCAL and supported by the MEDIA programme in partnership with the Austrian Film Institute, Federal Office of Culture (Switzerland), Norwegian Film Institute, Swedish Film Institute and Wallonia-Brussels Federation.