ESFUF evolves towards production support

A year and a half after its launch, the European Solidarity Fund for Ukrainian Films is evolving towards production support to better meet the needs of Ukrainian industry.

In February 2023, the Fund was built to respond to the Ukrainian film community’s most pressing issues by providing support for finalisation and for development.

The Fund now gathers 20 contributors: 19 national agencies or ministries of culture, all members of the EFAD association, as well as the association itself. Thanks to their contributions, 20 Ukrainian projects benefitted from the Fund this year, in addition to the 29 projects supported last year.

Works that were interrupted because of the full-scale invasion could be resumed and completed, while new projects by Ukrainian creators emerged. The Fund also fostered meaningful bonds with Ukrainian producers throughout Europe.

To this date, the Fund collected feedback from the Ukrainian industry to improve its support and match with the reality of the context. To pursue the work initiated on emerging projects and to bring these projects on screen, Ukrainian professionals now need more substantial financing.

ESFUF contributors thus decided to shift the Fund into a production support scheme.

A new ESFUF call for projects, dedicated to production support, is launched on October 14th and will close on November 4th.

This call, which will be the only ESFUF call for the second half of 2024, will be open to long-length cinematographic works that belongs to the genre of fiction, documentary or animation.

The applications of projects, that should be co-produced between Ukrainian production companies and companies established in ESFUF-contributing countries, must be submitted before the start of the film shooting.

To guide applicants through the new eligibility requirements and on the documents requested to apply, two webinars will be held by the ESFUF team. The webinars will take place on Friday, October 18th at 14:30 C.E.T., and Monday, October 21st at 14:30 C.E.T.