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COVID-19 budget support for green-lit projects

Screen Australia will launch the COVID-19 Budget Support Fund on Thursday 30 July. The fund will cover additional costs for green-lit productions to implement their COVID-Safety and Risk Assessment Plans to allow them to go into production safely.

Head of Content at Screen Australia Sally Caplan said, “During the Coronavirus pandemic it is essential that each production prepare their own rigorous COVID-Safe plans to mitigate risk for all cast and crew. In most cases this planning leads to additional costs, and so to assist with the back log of projects currently stalled we have reallocated some of the production investment budget to support with these costs and get more productions back up and running.”

This fund will be available for all projects that meet the eligibility criteria for existing factual and scripted funding programs including: episodic scripted drama (including web series), feature films and feature documentaries.

This fund is separate to the Temporary Interruption Fund (TIF) announced by the Government on Thursday 25 June 2020. Further details about TIF will be released in the coming weeks.

The COVID-19 Budget Support Fund will be specifically for projects that:

  • are green-lit, in late stage development or pre-production and intending and ready to go into production within six months of application; AND
  • would be eligible for one of Screen Australia’s existing funding programs.

Applicants will be able to apply for up to a limit of $300,000 or 10% of the existing production budget, whichever is less.

Due to limited funds Screen Australia will be unable to support every production looking for assistance with its COVID costs and the fund will close either when funding is exhausted or at the end of the 2020 calendar year.

Funding will be competitive and projects of scale which can demonstrate that a significant number of cast, crew, and screen sector workers will benefit from the project commencing are encouraged to apply.

More details will be available in the Guidelines on the website when the fund opens in the next week.

Applicants should email [email protected] before applying to ensure their project meets the criteria of the COVID-19 Budget Support Fund.