The new Danish Film Agreement enters into force
- The Danish Film Institute's CEO, Claus Ladegaard, has announced that the new agreement will allow more flexibility in assigning funds
The new Danish Film Agreement, approved in November last year, has now entered into force and will be valid until 2023. Although the total amount of public support for film will be the same as it was under the previous agreement – 560 million Danish crowns (circa €75 million) – it can now be invested with fewer limitations, especially on high-end projects.
In the past few years, the majority of domestic productions backed by the Danish Film Institute (DFI) were in receipt of grants ranging from €2.5 million to €3.5 million. The DFI's CEO and former producer Claus Ladegaard wants the body to be able to fund higher-budget domestic films, possibly in the €6-8 million range. In this respect, he added: “That’s important for us to do. That could help to grow audiences, too. Plus, Danish directors might now feel they do not have to work abroad to hit that higher budget level. The old law was very rigid; it was difficult to work with. The flexibility is what we are happiest about in this agreement. We have to differentiate the amounts we give to films more than we have before.”
However, support for successful lower-budget films, such as Gustav Möller's The Guilty [+see also:
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interview: Gustav Möller
film profile] and Hlynur Pálmason's Winter Brothers [+see also:
film review
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interview: Elliott Crosset Hove
interview: Hlynur Pálmason
film profile], will continue. Under the new film agreement, at least 32 million Danish crowns (circa €4.3 million) will be invested by New Danish Screen, the DFI scheme that fosters talent development and experimentation, and funds low-budget fiction, documentaries, hybrids, TV series and cross-media projects. According to Ladegaard, every year, the DFI will back “some low-budget films, some films in the middle, and maybe one to four films a year with a higher budget”.
Moreover, the new agreement has set an ambitious goal when it comes to Danish productions, as they should account for 29% of the national market share thanks to the more flexible funding criteria. There will also be more productions shot outside of Copenhagen, as the agreement will provide regional film funds, namely FilmFyn (based in Funen) and the West Danish Film Fund (based in Aarhus), with an increased financing capacity of 23.7 million Danish crowns (circa €3.2 million) per year.
Finally, Ladegaard pointed out the three key priorities for the DFI over the coming five years: increasing the cultural impact of Danish films both nationwide and abroad, following the digital transformation of the sector by chasing innovation, and pushing for higher levels of diversity, especially in terms of gender, social background and ethnicity.
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