Screen Australia and the Canada Media Fund are investing more than $800,000 in a new fund for digital interactive works.
The incentive is designed to foster collaboration between the two countries and to facilitate the production of innovative, original narrative pieces.
Projects will be evaluated and chosen by a committee of representatives from both funding organisations. Recipients will be announced in late February.
Screen Australia is contributing $400,000 and the Canadians are investing $C400,000 ($A423,000). There will be a $C300,000 cap on funding per project and the contribution from each country will be determined case-by-case. Generously, the funding is non-repayable.
The remit of CMF, which receives financial contributions from the Canadian government and Canada’s cable, satellite and IPTV distributors, is to develop, finance and promote the production of Canadian content.
Valerie Creighton, CMF’s president/CEO, said: “With 50 film and television co-productions between Canada and Australia, it’s a natural fit to build on this relationship and create an incentive for interactive digital media coproduction.
“We’ve had the pleasure of meeting with Australian officials at the Screen Producers Association of Australia Conference, Prime Time in Ottawa, MIPTV and TIFF in order to better understand our respective markets and devise a plan to offer producers on both sides of the ocean an opportunity to create stellar content for all audiences to enjoy.
“I want to thank Graeme Mason and his team for this opportunity to work together and foster a relationship that supports creative talents in both countries.”
Screen Australia investment manager Mike Cowap said, “The Canada-Australia Interactive Digital Media Incentive is designed to not only encourage creatives from each country to work together, but to facilitate the production of truly innovative and original narrative pieces.
“We want creatives to be experimental. This incentive is their chance to push the boundaries of how a story can be told in an interactive way, whether it is in an app, online, virtual reality or any other mind-blowing idea they can come up with. The hardest thing may be working with the time zone difference.”
Applications must comply with the guidelines for the incentive which will be available on the CMF and Screen Australia websites from October 23.
Submissions will open on November 1 via both websites and close on January 22.