Victoria Film Grants Through Co-productions And Joint Ventures

By Author: Belinda Darling
Total Articles: 152
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The Australian government has a number of bi-party co-production agreements that can provide access to film grants. Agreements are in place with Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy and the UK. Most recently Singapore, China France and New Zealand have also completed memorandum of agreement arrangements whilst a treaty with South Africa is to be signed shortly.Similar agreements are currently being negotiated with India, Denmark, Malaysia and the Republic of Korea.

For the benefit of film funding, any film approved under a co-production agreement is regarded as a national project in both countries meaning that it can benefit from support made available to the industry in both countries.

Each co-production arrangement will consist of requirements that must be met in both territories in order to qualify fully as eligible productions.Australian requirements are similar to other territories, but co-producers are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the detailed requirements of their partner territories.

A producer with technical and creative expertise and responsibility on the project must be ...
... appointed from each country. Executive producers from other countries can still be engaged where it is shown that they don’t play a technical or creative role.

A credited co-production will also make other state funds such as the Producer Offset available. This means the project will need to demonstrate compliance with the Significant Australian Content test and will also benefit from further funding streams available through Screen Australia. It will also qualify as Australian and overseas content for broadcast quota purposes.

For many projects, a looser affiliation structure is more appropriate, and a joint venture can provide such a structure and still provide film finance streams to the project. Unofficial co-productions, sometimes called production partnerships, are identified by a requirement for significantly lower amounts of paper work for funding applications, which tend to be simpler. In return, they have to demonstrate Significant Australian Content to qualify for funding.

This less clearly defined term covers key aspects of the project and includes the subject matter, the location the production is made in, the nationalities of those involved in the making of the production, the details of production expenditure incurred and any other points that may be relevant to Screen Australia. Whilst these criteria seem to be rather openended it is worth engaging with Screen Australia in order to find out how project can achieve compliance, remember they are an organization designed to promote such arrangements.

Ausfilm offers further incentives to joint venture and co-production projects in the form of Producer Offset of up to 40% for feature filmsand 20% for documentaries against Qualifying Australian Production Expenditure. A location offset of a further 16.5% is available for those projects with a qualifyproduction budget of AUD$15,000,000 and a AUD$1,000,000 per hour production budget for television projects. A Post, Digital and Visual Effects Offset (PDV) is also available to qualifying projects where Qualifying Australian Production Expenditure (QAPE) exceeds AUD$500,000 for PDV. The offset in this area can total 30% of the relevant expenditure and is applicable to all projects that are feature films, telemovies or mini-series.
Further information about these film grants can be found at Film Vic Emate.

Are you a film writer looking to get funding for your next project? Film Vic Emate has helped film writers secure film grants from the government in the past. If you want to offset your costs with film funding from the government, look no further than Film Vic Emate! Visit our website for more details.