The Irish Film Board, the Republic of Ireland's national film agency and main funding body, based in Galway, has officially launched the new guidelines for its Production and Development Funding Schemes. The new set of rules is valid as of January 2018 and provides potential applicants with important details regarding the board's evaluation criteria, fundamental prerequisites and allocated funding levels, as well as all of the prescribed deadlines. 

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Several essential changes will be introduced for the next rounds of applications. A new budget template is available and can be used for all of the submissions to the relevant schemes, divided into the following development categories: Project, Animation Film, Documentary, International, International Television Drama, Screenplay (intended to support the work of established professionals) and New Writing (designed to support emerging teams of writers and directors with grants of €8,000-€10,000 per recipient). Moreover, this year, there will be only three application rounds for the International Television Drama Development Scheme: the new deadlines are 28 February, 29 June and 31 October.

The Production Funding Scheme has instead introduced six new funding levels for the Irish Fiction Scheme, available to cover up to 65% of the expenses for budgets varying between €100,001 and €5 million. Microbudget productions (up to €100,000) are now eligible for full financing. Finally, bigger productions with budgets in excess of €5 million are eligible for a one-off contribution of €900,000.

In addition to this, enhanced production funding has been earmarked for favouring emerging female directing talent on projects that qualify for Documentary Production. The grant under this scheme can cover up to 65% of the feature’s budget but cannot exceed an amount of €150,000 per project. Lastly, there are no significant variations to the other Production Schemes, namely Creative Co-Production, TV Animation, Completion and Live-Action International Production.

The Irish Film Board recommends that applicants familiarise themselves with the guidelines prior to submitting their application forms. The Production and Development Funding Guidelines can be read and downloaded here.