Media Funds Management has announced the first successful independent funding of the Australian Producers Offset for the motion picture Prime Mover.
“I am happy to confirm that after many months of negotiations, MFM has secured a facility from an Australian bank to fund, over the next year, a number of Australian movies under the new Australian Producers Offset,” said James M. Vernon, managing director of MFM and executive producer.
“This new government initiative has presented us with numerous financing issues to overcome, but we have been able to eventually defeat all of them. I think it’s been one of the most difficult financing transactions I have been involved in, but well worth it in the end,” he said.
“We believe the Australian government honestly set out to fully assist the film and television industries with this legislation but, as it turned out, they could not have built a better funding trap to confound us all,” he said.
“Now that we have identified how to deal with all these financing issues, we are well placed to fund the Offset on any number of projects both big and small,” he said.
“Producers need to, however, set up their productions to take into account a range of issues that stem from the Offset funding, in particular, the eventual cinema release of the movie, the bonding of the QAPE amount and the ATO’s position on early lodgment of the production company’s Offset claim,” he said.
“We see a bright future ahead for the industry, with many more commercial fair coming to the market,” said
Vernon
.
Prime Mover is to be directed by David Caeser (Dirty Deeds, Mullet) and produced by Vincent Sheehan (Little Fish, Mullet) and is set against the backdrop of the long haul trucking industry. Prime Mover is set to start shooting in Dubbo NSW in two weeks time.