Two Irish Production companies - Octagon Films and Parallel Films Productions - have received Slate Funding support totalling €278,703 from the MEDIA Development results for the April 11th 2011 deadline. The funding is to assist the development of a Slate of projects at the companies, within the genre of fiction. A total of over €9 million has been awarded by MEDIA to 99 Single Projects, 27 Slates (both first and second stage Slate Funding) and 11 Interactive projects.
Octagon Films are an Irish production company involved with productions including large scale TV series ‘The Borgias’ and ‘Northanger Abbey’, films including Juanita Wilson’s ‘As If I am Not There’ and Neil Jordan’s ‘Ondine’ and are currently involved with Fidelite Film’s huge franchise ‘Astérix and Obélix’, which is filming in Ireland. Parallel Films credits include co-production roles in Glenn Close’s ‘Albert Nobbs’, Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Haywire’ and Neil Jordan’s upcoming vampire film ‘Byzantium’.
In other MEDIA news, the second call for proposals MEDIA Mundus has been launched. The call is for action taking place between the 01/02/2012 and 31/03/2013 in the fields of training, market access, distribution and circulation of audiovisual works. Proposals must be submitted by organisations based in MEDIA-participating countries with partners from non-European countries. Deadline for Media Mundus applicants is 23 September 2011. For more information click here.
MEDIA is also calling for proposals EACEA 19/2011 for the support for the Digitilisation of Cinemas. The support is dedicated to European independent cinema operators who screen a majority of European films (of which at least 30% are European non-national) and who will acquire and install a DCI compliant digital projector. The €2 million programme plans to support the digitalisation of 100 screens across Europe in 2011. The support comes in a lump sum of €20,000 per screen and will be awarded to co-finance the costs related to the digital transition of European theatres, to the exclusion of the cost of the digital projector and server. The deadline for application is September 15th 2011. For more information click here.
