Screen Australia overhauls funding, revives short film support and introduces $500K LOIs for features without market attachment

Screen Australia has announced a major shake-up of its funding programs, including the return of direct support for short films and the introduction of $500,000 Letter of Intents (LOI) for feature films without market attachment.

The agency will also discontinue its Premium and Generate development funding streams in favour of a single portal for all development applications.

The changes, which will take effect on July 1, are part of a new strategic framework that chair Michael Ebeid unveiled on the first day of Screen Forever on the Gold Coast.

In his speech, Ebeid said months of reflection, targeted consultation, and the results of its industry survey, had led the agency to its new strategy. Its purpose is to “build a vibrant and viable screen industry that reflects the depth and diversity of Australia’s stories”, delivered under the pillars of Empower, Enrich, Enable, Engage and Elevate.

“At the core of our new strategic framework is a shift from measuring our activity to measuring effectiveness,” he said.

“It’s not about how many initiatives or projects we support, but about whether we’re achieving our purpose and have impact.”

Under the Enable pillar, Screen Australia will consolidate its narrative development and production funding across film, television, online, and children’s content into a single, platform-agnostic stream with unified guidelines.

Regarding production, the agency will again open its support to fund short films, eight years after it replaced its Hot Shots Short Film Fund with a proof-of-concept program.

The LOI initiative is aimed at feature projects with a budget of $5 million or less. Early career filmmakers will be able to request $500,000 or less from Screen Australia as ‘first’ funding that will then assist market attachment. 

Other updates include raising the maximum eligible production budget of applications to $30 million; raising the funding threshold for online projects to support companies and practitioners focused on online/direct-to-audience; shifting from five funding deadlines per year to four; and minimising application requirements around request duplication, chain of title requirements at time of application and other statements concerning creative and market elements.

In addition to introducing one portal for applications, Screen Australia has pledged to reduce application requirements, including removing the the ‘pitch video’ requirement. It will also support applicants with templates for required application documents and implement an audience-first and platform-agnostic assessment lens.

The new system replaces the Premium and Generate funding strands, introduced in 2018, which separated higher budget projects from established screen content makers from lower budget projects from emerging talent, or experienced talent wanting to take creative risks.

As to whether the development funding update could have a detrimental impact on support for new and emerging practitioners, Screen Australia director of narrative content Louise Gough told a Screen Forever panel that “anyone can create audience-first work”.

“There is great traction in earlier career stories, whether in genre, for example, that may have the opportunity – and everything’s execution dependent naturally – to reach a really broad audience,” she said.

“The generate and premium [funding] always came out of the same pot, and in all of our assessment criteria, and the way that the staff work, we look for diversity of slate. Screen Australia is not a producer, production company or commissioner, but we very much, through our criteria, look at the diversity of projects that Screen Australia is putting development money into, whether that’s state, audience being served, scale of work, or geography of the filmmaking team.”

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