The Council of Europe’s Eurimages fund has named the 29 co-productions that will be supported from the latest round of applications. Three Irish co-productions, Black 47, Muse, and Return to Montauk, will share part of the combined fund of over €7 million.
The Fastnet Films produced Black 47 was awarded €500,000. The film, which will be directed by Lance Daly (Kisses) is a western set during the Irish Famine. The film is the feature adaptation of PJ Dillon and Pierce Ryan’s award-winning short An Ranger. The film recently was awarded €750,000 in production funding from the Irish Film Board. Fastnet Films are joined by Luxembourg-based Samsa Films as co-producers.
[REC] co-director Jaume Balaguero’s supernatural thriller Muse was awarded €281,488. The film, which was written by Balaguero, Fernando Navarro and Jose Carlos Somoza, is a co-production between Ireland’s Fantastic Films and Spain’s Filmax Entertainment. The plot sees a literature professor suffering from a recurring nightmare in which a woman is brutally murdered by a strange ritual. When that nightmare becomes real he embarks on a quest to discover the origin of the dream. Other co-producers include Castelao Pictures in Spain, Frakas Productions in Belgium, and The Jokers Films in France.
Volker Schlondorff’s new feature film Return to Montauk is based on a screenplay co-written with Brooklyn author Colm Tóibín, and follows a German writer who visits New York for the release of his book, which is about how he meet and fell in love with a young woman in the city 17 years ago. As his wife plans his new book tour he bumps into his orignal love again, and they decide to spend a weekend together in Montauk, a fishing port on Long Island.The film stars Stellan Skarsgard and Nina Hoss, as well as Susanne Wolff (Bullying), Isi Laborde, Niels Arestrup, and Irish star Bronagh Gallagher. Conor Barry of Savage Productions co-produces with Regina Ziegler of Ziegler Film and Schlondorff, Francis Boesplug for Pyramid Productions in France, Gaumont in France, in association with Mike Downey and Sam Taylor at Film & Music Entertainment of the U.K. Other co-producers include Til Schweiger and Tom Zickler of Barefoot Films, Christoph Liedke and Marc Gabizon of Wild Bunch, and the broadcasters WDR BR and ARTE. It is funded by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, FFA, DFFF, Eurimages, the Irish Film Board, and CNC. The film received €480,000 in this round of funding from Eurimages.
Eurimages supports full-length feature films and animation as well as documentaries of a minimum length of 70 minutes and aims to promote European co-productions. All projects submitted must have at least two co-producers from different member states of the Fund. For multilateral co-productions, the participation of the majority co-producer must not exceed 70% of the total co-production budget and the participation of the minority co-producers must not be lower than 10%. For bilateral co-productions the participation of the majority co-producer must not exceed 80% of the total co-production budget and the participation of the minority co-producer must not be lower than 20%. For bilateral co-productions with a budget above €5 million, a majority participation of 90% of the total co-production budget is allowed.
There are 4 deadlines each year for co-production. The final two for 2016 are as follows:
- 25th August
- 25th October
More information is available on the Eurimages website. Full list of selected projects on the Council of Europe website.