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FUNDING Sweden

New fund for mainstream features

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The Swedish government has approved the creation of a new production fund with a budget of around SEK 100,000 (€10.7m) for the production of mainstream Swedish features. The new production fund administered by the Swedish Film Institute (SFI) is raising its budget from the existing SFI Audience-Related Support (ARS), which rewards Swedish films that have attracted big audiences in the domestic theatrical market.

Peter Hald, who is deputy director at the SFI and will initially be responsible for the new fund, said that negotiations between the various partners in the Swedish Film Agreement started last year when it became clear that a substantial amount of money would be left over at the ARS.

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The new fund will consist of semi-automatic support with a point system based on a film’s commercial potential (on the basis of the cast, whether a script is adapted from a popular novel, the genre, and so forth) as well as the track records of the production company and filmmaker. It will run parallel to the existing SFI consultant-based production support, which has received criticism from various parts of the Swedish film industry following the rejection of films such as the critically acclaimed Darling [+see also:
trailer
film profile
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Similar advance production support for commercially oriented films already exists in Denmark and in Norway.

Candidates for the new production fund will be able to apply from the end of the summer. “It’s quite an uncontroversial measure taken by all partners in the Film Agreement, but Swedish producers will still have to find matching funds,” noted Hald.

Cissi Elwin, managing director of SFI, said: “It is really pleasant that the money that had been blocked until now can be used to reinforce our focus on Swedish film production. This will further strengthen the wave of success on which we have started to surf.”

The new fund will cease to exist once the extra funds from the ARS will have dried out.

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