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Comeback grant for film and TV
Published on 02 September 2020
Austria
This is the good practice's implementation level. It can be national, regional or local.
About this good practice
During the Corona-crisis shooting of film and TV-productions had to be shut down and postponed which lead to the consequences of going over budget. The costs caused by Covid-19 measures are not covered by insurances. From mid-March until June no bigger feature film production was able to take that financial risk and start shooting again. Producers were lobbying for a state aid to compensate additional costs caused by interruption or delay of shooting due to coronavirus-infections.
The objective of the Comeback grant is to stabilise the Austrian film industry by enabling producers to restart their interrupted shootings respectively start new shootings with the backup of financial state aid in case of interruption of the shooting due to any measures taken by the authorities relating to Covid-19. Thanks to the introduction of the 25 Mio. fund productions in Austria could restart in June 2020.
The program is administered by the managing team of FISA-Film Industry Support Austria. The ministries responsible are the Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs and the Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sports.
The guidelines of the Comeback grant are based on the GGER article 54.
The objective of the Comeback grant is to stabilise the Austrian film industry by enabling producers to restart their interrupted shootings respectively start new shootings with the backup of financial state aid in case of interruption of the shooting due to any measures taken by the authorities relating to Covid-19. Thanks to the introduction of the 25 Mio. fund productions in Austria could restart in June 2020.
The program is administered by the managing team of FISA-Film Industry Support Austria. The ministries responsible are the Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs and the Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sports.
The guidelines of the Comeback grant are based on the GGER article 54.
Expert opinion
The comeback grant provides and example of how Member States can setup state aid program to mitigate the economic consequences of the Covid-19 crisis. Besides the economic impact of the practice, which remains yet to be evaluated, the practice offers learning opportunities with the design of such programs in a way that is compatible with legal frameworks applying to state aid programs. This can be useful in vie fo the setup of programs in the new Recovery and Resilience Fund of the EC.
Further good practices and support from the Interreg Platform with the mitigation of the Covid-19 crisis can be found at
https://www.interregeurope.eu/covid-19/
Further good practices and support from the Interreg Platform with the mitigation of the Covid-19 crisis can be found at
https://www.interregeurope.eu/covid-19/
Works at
Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform
Resources needed
The total budget available is EUR 25 Mio.; the programme is administrated by the project team which is also responsible for Film Industry Support Austria, which helps to achieve synergy effects.
Evidence of success
Due to the novelty of the program the evidence of success is yet to be proven. It will be the number of produced films in Austria since the introduction of the program in June 2020 until the end of the program.
Potential for learning or transfer
No country and almost no industry in the world were spared by the consequences of the necessary Covid-19 measures taken by the governments. Especially the film industry were social distancing and quarantine disables film shoots the way they were foreseen and prepared for over months at the time of the lockdown. Even months after the measures, necessary in order to avoid the virus from spreading, bear tremendous financial risks for producers to start reshooting or shoot new films. The consequences are obvious, without producing new film and series, there is no employment for a whole industry and the aftermath on a long run could lead to a total breakdown of local film industries. Therefore, the solution for other countries could be to introduce a state aid program comparable to the Comeback grant to stabilise the film industry.
Further information
Website
Good practice owner
You can contact the good practice owner below for more detailed information.
Organisation
Austria Wirtschaftsservice
Austria
Wien
Contact
Head of