The European Commission has published in the Official Journal of the European Union on October 1st, 2008, a Call for Proposals to Support for the transnational distribution of European films Networking of European distributors — System of ‘selective’ support with a budget of 12,25 Meuros and  based on the decision of the European Parliament and of the Council  establishing a single pluriannual programme for Community actions in the audiovisual field for the period 2007-2013.

The Call for Proposals EACEA/22/08 for Networking of European distributors — System of ‘selective’ support is addressed at European companies specialising in the international sale of European cinema films. It encourages the circulation of European audiovisual works among the different countries participating in the MEDIA 2007 Programme.

Budget and award criteria

Support shall be granted for the distribution of films with a maximum production budget of EUR 15 million to groupings of at least five distributors in the case of films for which the budget is under EUR 3 million and at least seven distributors in the case of films for which the budget is between EUR 3 million and EUR 15 million. The financial aid may not exceed 50 % of the total eligible costs.

The award criteria for support shall be as follows: film origin and genre, number of eligible distributors, and first or second work by the director.

Potential support will be calculated for the eligible European selling agents on the basis of their performance on the European market (i.e. countries participating in the MEDIA 2007 programme). The support shall take the form of a potential credit (‘the potential support’) available to the selling agents for reinvestment in new non-national European films.

Applications may be submitted until 1 December 2008, 1 April 2009 and 1 July 2009. Applications must be sent to the following address :

‘Education, Audiovisual and Culture’ Executive Agency
MEDIA Programme
Call for proposals — EACEA/22/08
FAO: Mr Constantin Daskalakis
BOUR 03/30
Avenue du Bourget 1
B-1040 Brussels

Further information about this Calls for Proposals can be found in the MEDIA Programme website.