Bulgaria makes U-turn on film funding cuts
Scene from Face Down (2015, dir. Kamen Kalev), which received funding from the Bulgarian National Film Centre (Image: С лице надолу / Face Down / Facebook)
9 March 2016
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Elise Morton
The Bulgarian National Film Centre (NFC) has gone back on its decision to reduce funding available for new film projects in 2016.
Acting director of NFC, Kamen Balkanski, this week announced the decision to reinstate a second grant contest that was cancelled last month. The original reason for the reduced funding was a backlog of previously approved projects that, since approval, announced that they would go into production during 2016.
Following the decision, a total of 10,560,000 BGN (approx. US$5.9 million) will be allotted from the NFC’s budget for film production in 2016. New feature film projects will receive 7.5 million BNG (US$4.2 million) across two grant calls, one in May and the second one in November 2016.
Debut features are set to receive production grants of a total of 750,000 BGN (US$420,000). The amount for the short films will be 400,000 BGN (US$224,000).
Mr Balkanski also announced that the number of regular calls for co-productions throughout the year would remain at four, with 215,000 BGN (US$120,500) available during each grant competition.
Source: FilmNewEurope.com
