CREA European Co-Development Fund 2024

Creative Europe brings together actions supporting the European cultural and creative sectors.

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.
• These goals are pursued through the following specific objectives:
  • enhancing artistic and cultural cooperation at the European level, in order to support the creation of European works and strengthen the economic, social and external dimensions and innovation and mobility in Europe’s cultural and creative sectors (CULTURE strand);
  • promoting the competitiveness, scalability, cooperation, innovation and sustainability, including through mobility in the European audiovisual sector (MEDIA strand);
  • promoting policy cooperation and innovative actions supporting all strands of the Programme, promoting a diverse, independent and pluralistic media environment, and media literacy, thereby fostering freedom of artistic expression, intercultural dialogue and social inclusion (CROSS SECTORAL strand).

Themes and Priorities

• 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.

Funding Information

• The estimated available call budget is EUR 6 500 000.

Duration

• Projects should not normally exceed 30 months.

Eligible Activities

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

Expected Impact

• 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.

Eligibility Criteria

• Eligible participants (eligible countries)
  • 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 to demonstrate recent experience in producing internationally distributed works.
• Specific cases
  • Natural persons — Natural persons are NOT eligible with the exception of selfemployed persons, i.e. sole traders, where the company does not have legal personality separate from that of the natural person.
  • International organisations — International organisations are eligible. The rules on eligible countries do not apply to them.
  • EU bodies — EU bodies (with the exception of the European Commission Joint Research Centre) cannot be part of the consortium.

Ineligible

• The following works are ineligible
  • 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.

For more information, visit EC.