400m euro Media Plus scheme promotes cultural diversity

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Series Details Vol.7, No.30, 26.7.01, p13
Publication Date 26/07/2001
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Date: 26/07/01

World trade rules mean EU member states can support their national cinema and television industries in order to promote 'cultural diversity'. But the Union also has a number of initiatives in place designed to help its TV and filmmakers. The biggest single scheme is the MEDIA programme, which has existed under various different guises for nearly a decade. The latest version - the h400 million MEDIA Plus - was approved by EU culture ministers last November and will run from 2001-2005. Some of the cash will be spent to train filmmakers in a wide range of areas, including scriptwriting, sales techniques and digital technology. The rest will be used to help promote and dis-tribute EU films both across the Union and abroad. The MEDIA programme also awards an annual prize to the year's most promising European film.

This year it went to Belgian director Frédéric Fonteyne for Une Liaison Pornographique, which also earned Nathalie Baye a Best Actress award at a previous ceremony. Last year's prize went to Irish director Damien O'Donnell for East is East, a film about a Pakistani family living in the northern UK city of Manchester in the 1970s. The EU also has a number of low-interest loan programmes open to film and TV industries. These are managed jointly by the European Commission and the Luxembourg-based European Investment Bank (EIB). The latest of these schemes was unveiled in May this year and will free up around h1 billion to help fund EU audiovisual productions.

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