The UK's Screen South, Sweden's Film I Vast and Spain's IVACLa Filmoteca are among eight regional film funders who have swelled the ranksof the Cine-Regio network of European funding agencies to bring the membershipup to 13.

Part-financed by the European Union's Interreg IIICprogramme, the Cine-Regio network was launched at the beginning of this year byfive founding members, Belgium's Wallimage, Germany's MFG Baden-Wuerttemberg,Austria's Vienna Film Fund, the Netherlands' Rotterdam Film Fund, and Italy'sProvincia di Lecce (whose brand new Euros 700,000 Salento Film Fund will beoperational from January 2005).

The new members now confirmed are: Finland's Poem, France'sRegion Provence-Alpes-Cotes d'Azur, IVAC La Filmoteca, Institut Catala De LesIndustries Culturals and Consorcio Audiovisual de Galicia (all from Spain), TheWest Danish Film Fund, Screen South, and Film I Vast.

Cine-Regio was created to stimulate the exchange ofexperiences and good practices between its founders and extend this to otherregional funds for their investment policies and the nature of supportedprojects.

Speaking to Screendaily.com,the network's Financial Director Daniel Zimmermann explained that Cine-Regiocan "help in the assessment of what is needed to help European co-productions,what makes the funds attractive and what makes them necessary. This comes at atime when the regional funds are representing an increasingly significantsource of film financing while, at the same time, the national funds' means aregetting scarce."