Call for Proposals: European Co-development Grant

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.

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. Applications should present adequate strategies to ensure a more sustainable and more environmentally respectful industry and to ensure gender balance, inclusion, diversity and representativeness.

Objectives

• The general objectives of the Programme are:
  • To safeguard, develop and promote European cultural and linguistic diversity and heritage;
  • To increase the competitiveness and the economic potential of the cultural and creative sectors, in particular the audiovisual sector.

Funding Information

• The estimated available call budget is EUR 6500000.
• Projects should not normally exceed 30 months.

Deliverables

• Following deliverables must be provided:
  • WP 1 – Further planning of co-development activities up to entry into production of the project.
  • WP 2and following – Updated creative, financing and marketing materials.
  • Depending on the division of work between coordinator and partner(s), these must consist of the following deliverables:
    • Updated creative development (treatment, script, bible, episode outline or others)
    • Update on research work undertaken and visual material
    • Update on key artistic crew/casting
    • Updated financing and production budgets and schedules
    • Updated distribution and marketing strategies
    • Interoperable standard identified and link to the final work, if produced.

Eligible Projects

• Projects must comply with:
  • Highest ethical standards;
  • Applicable EU, international and national law.

Eligible Activities

• Only the co-development activities for the following works are eligible:
  • Feature films, animations and creative documentaries of a minimum length of 60 minutes intended primarily for cinematic release;
  • Fiction projects (one-off or series) of a total duration of minimum 90 minutes, animation (one-off or series) of a total duration of minimum 24 minutes and creative documentaries (one-off or series) of a total duration of minimum 50 minutes intended primarily for the purposes of television or digital platform exploitation;
  • Interactive, immersive fiction, animation or creative documentary projects (e.g. narrative virtual reality projects) of any duration.

Ineligible Activities

• The following works are ineligible for both development and short film activities:
  • Live recordings, TV games, talk shows, cooking shows, magazines, tv-shows, reality shows, educational, teaching and “how to” programmes;
  • Documentaries promoting tourism, “making-of”, reports, animal reportages, news programmes and “docu-soaps”;
  • Projects including pornographic or racist material or advocating violence;
  • Works of a promotional nature;
  • Institutional productions to promote a specific organisation or its activities;
  • Music videos and video-clips;
  • Video games, e-books and interactive books;
  • Student films and graduation works.

Eligibility Criteria

• 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
• 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 to demonstrate recent experience in producing internationally distributed works.
• Beneficiaries and affiliated entities must register in the Participant Register — before submitting the proposal — and will have to be validated by the Central Validation Service (REA Validation). For the validation, they will be requested to upload documents showing legal status and origin.

For more information, visit European Commission.