Productions supported by the European Media Production Guarantee Fund (MPFG) include upcoming A Most Wanted Man, The Congress and Berlinale Golden Bear contender Layla Fourie.
The MPFG has helped generate some €47m ($64m) worth of production loans since its creation at the beginning of 2011, data up to the end of 2012 has revealed.
France’s Institute for the Financing of Cinema and Cultural Industries (IFCIC), which manages the fund, said it had made €20m ($27m) worth of commitments since its launch in 2011, encouraging the granting of €47m ($64m)worth of loans.
In total, 31 independent production companies from eight European companies have benefitted from the fund’s support for the creation of 21 films.
Pictures to have won the fund’s support include Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth’s The Fifth Season, Francois Pirot’s Mobile Home, Miguel Courtois Paternina’s Operacion E and Pia Marais’ Layla Fourie, which screens in Berlin next week.
Upcoming films to have received backing from the fund include Ari Folman’s The Congress and Anton Corbijn’s A Most Wanted Man for which UK-based production company A Most Wanted Man Ltd and German Amusement Park Film received guarantees of €3,475,581 ($4.7m) and €1,581,250 ($2.1m) respectively.
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The MPFG mandate runs until the end of 2013. Its future within the new Creative Europe framework is currently under discussion. One idea being mooted is that the MPFG will be incorporated into a larger guarantee fund covering all of the arts.
“The guarantee instrument chosen, whatever its shape, must in any case take into account the particularities of financing film and audiovisual production,” said Laurent Vallet, COO of the IFCIC.
Launched in 2011, the MPFG benefits from a €4m endowment from the EU until 2013. On the basis of the EU endowment, the fund has calculated it can make guarantees worth a total of €36m ($48.8m).
The objective of the fund is to facilitate access to credit for independent European producers by offering to share the risk with banks that are involved in film finance. The body reduces by more than half the risk carried by the banks.
The IFCIC is a credit institution created in 1983 to facilitate credit access to cultural businesses.
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