Gomorrah, directed by Matteo Garrone

The MEDIA Automatic Distribution Scheme returns this year with a budget of €17 million.  European distributors have until 29 May 2009 to apply for grants which are based on their performance on the market in the previous calendar year.  The scheme rewards distributors for all paid admissions for European non-national films they have released. 

The scheme works in two stages: the first stage, referred to as the generation stage, involves distributors reporting on paid admissions per title.  This needs to be done by 29 May.  The number of paid admissions will be converted by the MEDIA Unit in Brussels to an amount of subsidy available to the distributor to reinvest in paying minimum guarantees and/or p&a costs for their new non-national European acquisitions.

In the UK in 2008 El Orphanato (The Orphanage), Persepolis, and Gomorrah, amongst other titles, had very strong box office figures.  Distributors of those titles can now rightfully expect MEDIA to be quite generous to them!  

For full details of the scheme see here.