A New Start for the Audiovisual Industry Support

A producer was required to invest at least two million Euro in Slovakia to be eligible to apply to the Slovak Audiovisual Fund for a retroactive grant of twenty percent of the sum invested in the project within the Audiovisual Industry Support Programme in Slovakia. However, this was how the programme was organised only up to 1 August 2017. The Ministries of Culture and Finance, in collaboration with the Fund, have since agreed on new, substantially more accommodating conditions.

The Slovak Auiovisual Fund opened the above programme in September 2014 and, among others, its aim was to generate interest in shooting and making films or TV series in Slovakia and to increase the international competitiveness of the local audiovisual industry. However, the conditions in this programme, as originally determined, appeared to be too strict, especially as regards Slovak producers. In effect, only projects with a budget of at least four million Euro met the conditions, as the eligible expenditures were required not to exceed fifty percent of the project’s total budget. This substantially reduced the number of eligible applicants for a retroactive grant.

The current changes to the programme should also make this type of support more accessible to Slovak projects. That is because the minimum invested sum condition has been reduced to 150,000 Euro per full-length fi lm (seventy minutes and more) or documentary and animated series (not more than thirteen episodes each lasting at least five minutes). If the project includes two or three films, this limit is reduced to 300,000 Euro which also applies to feature series (not more than thirteen episodes each lasting at least forty minutes). The conditions for the registration of a project in the Slovak Audiovisual Fund and for the completion of the cultural test remain unchanged. Similar supporting mechanisms apply in several European countries, but the Director of the Slovak Audiovisual Fund, Martin Šmatlák, sees the advantages of the Slovak programme largely in the option to apply for a retroactive grant for two or three works registered as one project. The programme afforded this option previously; however, by reducing the limit of funds invested, it now becomes more attractive. Under the revised conditions, the producer can also obtain a grant for works that would not meet the required financial limit as stand-alone projects.

As soon as all the conditions are met, the producer may apply for a one-off retroactive grant only once the whole project has been completed, but also for a grant paid in several stages – albeit, not more than once a quarter. Naturally, those expenditures that were paid from public funds in Slovakia may not be included in the application.

This revision to the conditions of the Audiovisual Industry Support Programme in Slovakia has already brought an increased number of projects registered in the Slovak Audiovisual Fund. And in respect of potential interest of foreign productions in making a project in Slovakia, the incipient Slovak Film Commission might represent another accommodating step.

— text: Daniel Bernát —
photo:
Maria Theresia (Mária Terézia) / RTVS