COVID-19 Budget Support Fund to close

Screen Australia’s COVID-19 Budget Support Fund will close on Thursday 17 December at 5pm.

The COVID-19 Budget Support Fund has provided support to green-lit productions to cover additional costs associated with implementing their COVID-Safety and Risk Assessment Plans, allowing them to go into production safely.

Due to the limited funds available it was always intended to be a temporary fund that would close at the end of the calendar year or when funds were exhausted.

All eligible applications submitted before the fund closes will be assessed against the criteria in the Guidelines.

Projects applying for Screen Australia production funding will still need to account for COVID costs within their budgets but now the sector is more accustomed to the planning required to shoot in the current environment the additional costs for COVID-safe planning should be reflected in schedules and budgets.

Applications for production funding that come to Screen Australia from 4 January 2021 should account for COVID costs in their finance plans. These costs will then be assessed alongside all other parts of their application, including comparisons with other projects in the round to determine competitiveness.

The Screen Australia office will be closed from 21 December 2020 to 1 January 2021 inclusive. Questions relating to existing applications should be directed to Covid Budget Support before 5pm Thursday 17 December.