European Solidarity Fund for Ukrainian Films

Funding Information

• Production support is capped at €200,000 (two hundred thousand euros) for fiction and animation and €90,000 (ninety thousand euros) for documentary.

Eligible Expenses

• The grant is awarded to cover production costs related to:
  • Artistic rights,
  • Salaries and social security contributions for all crew members,
  • Talents,
  • Acquisition or rental of equipment,
  • Duly justified transport, travel and living expenses,
  • Technical means,
  • Postproduction expenses,
  • Insurance, legal and accounting services:
    • Production and technical equipment and set insurance,
    • Legal fees (lawyer’s fees and financial advice, registration and public register fees, etc.),
    • Certification of accounts,
  • Overhead costs up to 10% of the production grant.

Eligibility Criteria

• In order to benefit from the Fund, long-length cinematographic works must meet all the following requirements:
  • They are intended to be first released in theatres in at least one of the territories of the co-producers of the work, and their duration must exceed 60 minutes.
  • They belong to the genres of fiction, documentary, or animation.
  • The director is a national of Ukraine or Ukraine is his or her country of habitual residence.
  • They are coproduced between at least one production company established in Ukraine and one production company established on the territory of one of the contributing States of the Fund
  • They must be co-produced within the framework of an official co-production: either under a bilateral agreement between Ukraine and a contributing State of the Fund, or under the European Convention on Cinematographic Co-production of the Council of Europe of 2 October 1992 or the Council of Europe Convention on Cinematographic Co-production of 30 January 2017.
    • In the event of a bilateral co-production, the proportion of the respective participations of the Ukrainian co-producer(s) and the co-producer(s) established on the territory of one of the contributing States shall be between 20% and 80% of the total production cost of the cinematographic work
    • In the event of a multilateral co-production, the respective participations of the Ukrainian co-producer(s) and the co-producer(s) established on the territory of one of the contributing States shall be between 10% and 70% of the total production cost of the cinematographic work.
    • The participation of the producer(s) established on the territory of a third State may not exceed 30%.
  • The Ukrainian co-production company must be the main owner of the intellectual property rights to the work.
  • The works shall be the object of a co-production contract including a partition of the rights of exploitation of the work, concluded between the production company or companies established on the contributing States, and the production company or companies established in Ukraine.

Selection Criteria

• In drawing up its opinion, the Commission applies the following selection criteria:
  • Artistic quality and originality of the project,
  • Importance of the testimony that the work, through its dramatic content, its production or the talents and artistic collaborations it brings together, represents for Ukrainian culture and society,
  • Financial feasibility,
  • Technical and logistical feasibility,
  • Degree of involvement of the production company established on the territory of one of the Parties,
  • Distribution prospects.
• Particular attention will be paid to:
  • Applications for fiction projects,
  • Projects that have received financial support at the development stage or for which the author has taken part in a writing residency.
• For the calculation of the amount of the financial support, the following elements are considered:
  • Project estimate and financing plan,
  • Distribution of the expenses envisaged in each territory,
  • Financial envelope of the Fund.

For more information, visit ESFUF.