Canada TV fund opens to Ireland

Television programme makers, from documentaries to drama, have long complained that while film-makers start their process by accessing development funding, in television funding is usually made available only when the production is well under way. A niche new scheme, however, the Canada- Ireland Co-development Incentive, allows programme-makers to tap into project funding at the ideas stage.

The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) has partnered the Canada Media Fund (CMF) to establish a development pot of €150,000 to be awarded to projects that meet the criteria as laid out by the two organisations. The base-line criteria are consistent with BAI policy, which supports projects that focus on an aspect of Irish cultural heritage and experience.

Seeing how the Canadian fund has worked with other partners including Italy and New Zealand encouraged the BAI to believe that, given our strong links to Canada, such a kickstarter scheme would work here.

The first step is for Irish production companies to partner a Canadian one and the CMF website facilities such initial networking.

“We intend to be as open as possible when assessing applications,” says Nuala Dormer, the project’s administrator at the BAI, who says that funding for television projects from organisation tends to be “the last piece of the jigsaw” but that this allows programme-makers of whatever type to get started on an idea.

Quite how lateral the funding process can be is evidenced in a recent award made by the CMF-Italian co-development body to a documentary-maker working on In the Name of Gerry Conlon, an Italian film about one of the Guildford Four.

Dormer notes also that aside from the financial leg up, gaining such funding can also act as a calling card when producers are trying to access other funding streams. “When a State agency has shown to have confidence in a project it tends to generate other interest,” she says. The total maximum contribution for each project will be €40,000. The deadline is September 28th.

Meanwhile other Canadian money – private sector this time – has come on board for an Irish project. Irish animated film from Cartoon Saloon The Breadwinner, directed by Nora Twomey with a screenplay by Anita Doron and Deborah Ellis and executive produced by Angelina Jolie, has got funding from Canada’s Guru Studios.

The Breadwinner is a co-production between Aircraft Pictures Canada, Luxembourg’s Mélusine Productions and Cartoon Saloon in association with Jolie’s Jolie Pas Productions with funding from the Irish Film Board, the BAI and RTÉ – a list that shows Dormer’s use of the word “jigsaw” to describe film funding is accurate.