Reports Previous Workshops
Sixth Workshop – 27 to 29 September 2016 – Warth (Switzerland)
Module 2 – Scriptwriting and Development Support: funding landscape, co-development initiatives and development strategies, successful or unsuccessful stories
Introduction
Almost all public funds have schemes dedicated to project development. Some of them have a specific scriptwriting support scheme dedicated to script development. There are also more and more co-development initiatives between funds from different countries to favor an earlier cooperation between coproduction partners.
Or, in other words:
- What outcomes do funds expect of those schemes?
- What do they consider as the most important activities to be achieved during this stage of production?
- Do they consider themselves as a development partner? What experiences and practices give good results?
Case Study 1 / Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg GmbH (MBB)
Please also see Veronika Grob’s presentation (PDF)
www.medienboard.de
Overview of the development activities supported by MBB
- Feature films (script and project development)
- Serial drama (script and project development, production pilots)
- Interactive and innovative projects (Development games, Transmedia, Apps, VR)
- WIGO – support program for web videos (Entertainment, Talk, Fiction, Factual), with RBB.
- Co-production initiatives (co-production markets, training initiatives, CRC – Capital Regions for Cinemas, German-British co-productions meetings, artists-in-residence programs for filmmakers in cities such as Paris, Tel Aviv, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Toronto)
- Co-development funds with other German regions and/or foreign national funds
1. The German-Polish Co-development Fund
Why?
- The region of Berlin Brandenburg and Poland are neighbors
- They share the same cultural heritage
- Traditionally, there are numerous natural co-productions between Poland and Germany, both in financial and in creative terms.
How?
- Two regional German film funds, MBB and Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM) started collaboration with the Polish Film Institute (PFI) more than 10 years ago allocating parts of their budgets for the co-development initiative
- The initiative started as the co-development fund, but since September 2016, with the arrival of the FFA as a new partner, it also applies to co-production of low-budget films by first-time filmmakers.
- The eligible projects must involve a Polish producer and a German producer based in one of the above mentioned German regions.
- The annual budget for 2017 is 500,000 euro (was 300,000 euro until end of 2016)
- Around 70,000 euro is allocated per project for co-development
- Around 150,000 euro is allocated per project for co-production of low-budget, first-feature films.
Examples of supported projects by this fund: see Veronika Grob’s presentation (PDF)
2. The German-Turkish Co-production Development Fund
Why?
- There is a large Turkish community (and large Turkish filmmaking community) in Germany, particularly in Hamburg and Berlin.
- There are many German-Turkish projects with natural/organic collaboration between producers.
- The idea for the establishment of a co-development fund did not come from the politicians or industry. It came from the regional film funds, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, and the Istanbul Film Festival – Meetings on the Bridge co-production market that altogether set up the fund in 2011.
- There is no film institute in Turkey similar to the ones in European countries and the Turkish Ministry of Culture has no minority co-production scheme, so this fund can to some extent compensate for that.
How?
- The financing comes from the two German regional funds and from the Turkish Ministry of Culture, which gives a specific allocation to the Istanbul Film Festival to administer the fund.
- The fund occasionally provides co-production support, which happened twice so far. It applies only to low-budget films that have already received a co-development support.
- Eligible projects must involve a Turkish and a German producer coming from the relevant regions.
- Producers apply to the Turkish partner if the scriptwriter is Turkish and if project is a majority Turkish co-production. It is the other way round if the project is a German majority co-production and involves German scriptwriter. However, most of the co-developed/co-produced projects are Turkish majority projects that are in need of German co-producers.
- Annual budget of the fund is 150,000 euro
Examples of supported projects by this fund: see Veronika Grob’s presentation (PDF)
3. The Franco-German agreement for the joint development of fictional series
Why?
- To extend co-production activities between France and Germany to television after the success of the mini-treaty that involves feature films
- The budget for TV series is getting higher and higher and a single region cannot afford them alone
How?
- Created in 2016, the fund is jointly financed by four regional German funds, Film und Medien Stiftung NRW, MFG Filmförderung (Baden-Wurttenberg), FFF Bayern, MBB and the French national film agency CNC.
- Two projects were selected in the first round: one to be co-developed with the region of Baden Wurttenberg and one with Bayern.
- The selection criteria come first, then the artistic value of the projects and lastly, to what extent the projects satisfy regional economic criteria.
- In 2017, there will be only one deadline per year. It is expected that four projects will be selected, one to be co-developed with each region.
- Annual budget of the fund is 200,000 euro
- Maximum amount per project is 50,000 euro
- Projects must have a particular cultural and/or economic relevance for France or for one of the four German regions – Baden-Württemberg, Bayern, Berlin-Brandenburg or Nordrhein-Westfalen
Examples of supported projects by this fund: see Veronika Grob’s presentation (PDF)
Challenges of those co-development/co-production funds
- The “form” of the subsidy is different for Germany (repayable loans) and France (grants) which complicates the agreements and the recoupment of the funding. This fund differs from the German-French Mini Treaty (CNC-FFA) inasmuch as the latter is based on pure, non-repayable subsidies.
- There must be a link with the type of projects the fund supports. The German Federal Film Board (FFA) does not support TV, unlike the regional funds. That is the only reason why the CNC ended up launching the TV co-development fund with regional funds.
- Supported projects must also meet the regional spend requirements specific to each fund. For example, all projects co-developed with Berlin-Brandenburg must be shot in Berlin.
- Regional funds are economy driven, but co-development initiatives are usually driven by political and cultural reasons. Is there a tension between these two objectives?
Case Study 2 / Croatian Audiovisual Center – Re-Act
Presented by Sanja Ravlic – Croatian Film Center
www.filmreact.eu
What?
- RE-ACT is a co-development initiative set up in 2015 by the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Friuli Venezia Giulia Audiovisual Fund (FVG) and Slovenian Film Centre in collaboration with TorinoFilmLab. This initiative aims at developing new audiovisual projects and fostering international co-productions. It is designed for filmmakers and producers who wish to foster closer ties within Croatia, Friuli Venezia Giulia region (Italy) and Slovenia.
Why?
- There are certain historical and cultural connections between the three regions. The entire area used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
- The initiative is triggered by the fact that Friuli Venezia Giulia Audiovisual Fund for many years has been running the co-production market “When East meets West (WEMW)“ during the Trieste Film Festival. Thanks to this market, producers from the regions already knew each other and a co-development initiative was a natural step further.
How?
- The regulations are formulated in such a way that they comply with all three national legislations
- FVG administers the initiative, but all three funds are managing the budget together.
- RE-ACT consists of two segments: regional training and co-development initiatives. The training is implemented through the RE-ACT workshop in collaboration with the Torino Film Lab’s Framework program. The co-development initiative is called co-development fund and is financed by the three funds involved in the initiative.
- Annual budget of the co-development fund is 60,000 euro.
- The average maximum amount per project is 10,000 euro.
- Eligible projects must have already been granted a development support from one of the participating funds.
- Stories selected for both RE-ACT workshop and co-development fund should be linking the territories and be original.
- The attendance to the RE-ACT workshop is not a prerequisite for receiving funding from the co-development fund
- RE-ACT will soon teaming up with EAVE Puentes to start partnership with Latin America.
Outcome of group discussions
Why do funds need co-development funds?
- They contribute to cultural diversity and ease political issues between countries.
- They are the future for regions/small countries of similar cultural and linguistic background (like ex-Yugoslavia).
- Contrary to the economy-driven official co-productions, co-developing is content-driven and puts people together in a more organic and creative way.
- Co-development initiatives facilitate an exchange of experiences between creative teams from different countries. The most recent example is German-Dutch co-development initiative for children’s films. It came out of the idea that the Dutch scriptwriters knew better how to make audience-appealing children’s film with serous topics.
- The money that a fund invests in a co-development fund is tiny, but it keeps the fund as a player that controls and molds supported project.
But
- Co-development initiatives usually make sense only between the countries already connected by co-production treaties, enabling the financing of the co-developed projects at the production stage.
- Co-development fund on its own is pointless unless it is a response to a need or a request of the industry.
- Public funds do not receive an additional funding from national governments to set-up co-development funds. They have to squeeze them in the existing budget.
- Co-development fund should include all formats and all kinds of content not just film.
- Some of the Nordic countries are not fans of the co-development and/or official coproduction treaty initiatives. Norway, for example, prefers a focus countries approach which is more pragmatic and fruitful than the bureaucratic and political “treaty approach”. From time to time, the Norwegian Film Institute chooses a so-called “focus countries” with whom they want to establish collaboration (some rich, progressive countries) and arrange a series of informal collaborative actions in order to make producers learn from each other and co-produce more.
The Development of Content: Challenges and Opportunities – Public Funds as Pawns or Players?
- Introduction – Scriptwriting and development funding landscape
- Module 1 – Evaluation of funds' portfolio
- Module 2 – Scriptwriting and Development Support: funding landscape, co-development initiatives and development strategies, successful or unsuccessful stories
- Module 3 – Automatic schemes: more about sustaining production companies than developing quality projects?
- Module 4 – VoD platforms as commissioners and distributors of original content. For good or for bad?
- Module 5 – Talent support initiatives
- Module 6 – Hybrid contents: the mix of different artistic disciplines
- Module 7 – Development – An underestimated stage in the production process?
Illustrations by Séverine Leibundgut
Schedules Previous Workshops Partners Contact