Screen Australia has flagged it will consider how the Producer Equity Program (PEP) will operate going forward, with funds already exhausted for this financial year.
The agency announced yesterday it will cease accepting applications for the remainder of 2022/23 from April 27. New applications will then be accepted July 1.
PEP, which is not creatively assessed, provides a direct payment of funds to producers of eligible low-budget documentaries, equal to 20 per cent of the approved budget. Unlike the Producer Offset, funded via the Australian Tax Office, PEP comes from within the agency’s budget. In that sense, adding new funds to PEP would mean reallocating funds from other documentary programs.
A Screen Australia spokesperson told IF the agency has already received the same volume of applications for PEP this year that it funded in the total 2021/22 financial year, when it gave $1.52 million to 27 projects.
The total PEP spend for 2022/23 will not be disclosed until the agency releases its annual report, but the agency’s total documentary budget is unchanged from last year and the spokesperson said “a similar amount has been allocated to PEP this financial year as was last financial year’.
“Balancing available funds with demand across all documentary programs is always challenging. Unfortunately we don’t have the resources to continue to meet the demand for the Producer Equity Program this financial year. We understand this delay may be inconvenient and appreciate the patience of the industry,” said Screen Australia head of documentary Alex West in a statement yesterday.
“As the PEP budget has been fully allocated, allowing applications to be processed until the end of June 2023 would impact the funds available through the Producer, Commissioned and Development documentary programs. The pause on PEP application processing will not impact Screen Australia’s total 2022/23 documentary investment.”
This is not the first time PEP funding has been exhausted prior to the end of the financial year. In 2018/19, despite Screen Australia injecting a further $.5 million into the program to raise its budget to $3 million, PEP was exhausted by April due to unprecedented demand. That month, the agency also launched interim clarifications to the scheme, which still remain in place.
In late 2019, Screen Australia then announced a planned revamp of its documentary programs, including a proposal to replace PEP with a creatively-assessed completion fund. Screen Producers Australia criticised the model, arguing it would “remove certainty for documentary makers.”
When the pandemic hit, Screen Australia dropped plans for major overhaul of documentary programs, making instead only slight tweaks. PEP remained largely untouched, albeit with some loopholes closed around the definition of documentary in order to stop completed projects and brand-funded entertainment applying. West told the Australian International Documentary Conference last year that “PEP is in working order”.
West has been an advocate for PEP since he joined the agency in January 2022, when he told IF he would not look to make “massive changes” program.
“What I really like about it is that it was developed in response to filmmakers’ desires for a low intervention measure that covers the more indie end of the spectrum and enables people doing their own work on their own projects to send them in,” he said then.
“I think that’s a setting which is extremely valuable.”
When asked by IF, Screen Australia could not provide further detail about what it is considering regarding PEP, simply noting it would have more to say in coming months.