Fís Éireann / Screen Ireland

Screen Ireland announces new guidelines for Feature Film Development support

Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland has announced revised guidelines across feature film development funding categories, in order to make the application process easier and more streamlined for Irish filmmakers. The agency is also improving the process for applying for Additional Feature Film Development, aimed at helping producers to maintain momentum during the development process.

Feature Film Development (formerly Project Development) funding and Screenplay Development will now have more concise application requirements, creating less paperwork for applicants as well as ensuring more clarity for teams around their projects at the initial development stages.

Other benefits to the new guidelines include no longer having to submit full scripts. Instead, applicants with be asked to provide a short synopsis with a detailed treatment or the first act of the script with a two-page synopsis outlining the complete story.

The Additional Feature Film Development fund is specifically for projects already in receipt of Screen Ireland funding. As a way of helping producers to maintain momentum during the development process, projects which have closed off an initial stage of funding will be able to submit on a rolling basis with prior Project Manager approval. If approved for submission, projects will then be brought to the next available Development meeting.

To coincide with and support these new changes to the development funding process, Screen Skills Ireland will deliver a series of free webinars as part of their online ‘Screen Talks’ initiative, focusing on key related topics such as Writing Treatments and Writing Synopses and Log Lines.

The revised application forms will be available from Monday, April 6th and the next Development Funding deadline is April 30th.