In a bid to increase the efficiency of talent and project development, three of Europe's key film training organisations are to link together under the banner AMA.

The three - story editor training body Arista, script development outfit Moonstone and producer finishing school ACE - are all backed by the European Union's MEDIA Plus programme.

"All three members of AMA had projects and applicants in common," said ACE president and Arista co-founder Simon Perry. "It became clear that we could have a build, and intelligence organisation that is wider than any one of the networks. And it is possible for each of the training programmes to benefit by learning from each other."

MEDIA, which is now encouraging the agencies it funds to find commonalities and inter-disciplinary links, has rewarded the trio by guaranteeing them three years of financing, instead of the usual annual funding round.

A similar link has been created under the EPAN label involving the Nipkow programme, the Media Business School and another script development agency North By Northwest.

Perry and ACE chief executive Sophie Bourdon, attributed the AMA initiative to john McGrath, the Moonstone chief executive who died last week.