International Coproductions

The international coproduction and codevelopment incentives are designed to support the Canada Media Fund’s (CMF) objectives of finding innovative solutions to encourage the coproduction and codevelopment of content. The CMF partners with international funding organizations to develop matching funds to invest in the creation of innovative projects that have at least one Canadian and one international producer. The year 2016-2017 saw five matching incentives. Four were continued from the previous year and one was a new partnership with Ireland. The incentives targeted both Experimental and Convergent projects, in production and development stages. The foreign partners contributed a total of $862K to CMF-funded projects.

International Coproduction and Codevelopment Incentives: 2016-2017

Incentive	Stream	Activity	# of projects	CMF Funding $K	Foreign Funder $K	Canadian Budgets $K
Canada-New Zealand Digital Media Fund	Experimental	Production	2	386	414	520
Canada-Wallonia Digital Media Incentive for Multiplatform Projects	Experimental	Production	1	250	250	N/A
SP Cine Codevelopment Incentive	Experimental	Development	4	90	78	131
Canada-Ireland Codevelopment Incentive for Audio-visual Projects	Convergent	Development	4	65	104	95
Canada-Italy Codevelopment Incentive for Documentary Projects	Convergent	Development	1	23	16	N/A
Total			12	814	862	1,109

The CMF supports international coproductions through both its Convergent and Experimental streams. 

 

Convergent

In 2016-2017, international treaty coproductions represented a small portion of CMF convergent funded projects (4.4% of all production funding). 

At a total of $13.6M, funding to international convergent coproductions decreased by 13.4% from 2015-2016, although the number of projects has increased. However, the downturn is not as great as in 2012-2013 and 2014-2015. 

Majority coproduction funding surpassed minority coproduction funding for the first time in three years. Majority coproduction funding rose by $1.2M from last year and minority coproduction funding declined by $3.3M.

The majority of convergent coproductions were with France (9) and the United Kingdom (6), as has been the trend in recent years. Compared to the previous year’s 6 coproducing partners, 2016-2017 saw coproductions with 11 countries. Ireland coproduced a big-budget drama for the seventh consecutive year, returning on Vikings V. Hungary partnered on X Company for the third year. 

 

Experimental

There were 7 Experimental-funded international coproductions in 2016-2017, all benefitting from the international coproduction incentives.

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