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Home » Glossary

Glossary

Accession countries

The 12 countries which joined the European Union in 2004 and 2007: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

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The ACP-EU partnership agreement is financed under the European Development Fund (EDF). It includes a support programme for ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) cinema and audiovisual industry - film and television production and distribution, promotion, networking, and training within the audiovisual industries. Applicants (except Cuba, where they can only be partners) must be from EU member states or ACP states.

ACP countries are: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo, Cook Islands, Ivory Coast, Cuba, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Federated States of Micronesia, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Uganda, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

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C

Call for Proposals

Call for Proposals - an annual funding round by which the funding is allocated for each scheme. Each scheme has only one Call for Proposals in any year but each Call may have different deadlines that you can choose to apply for.

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Creative documentary

Creative documentaries take a real-life subject as their starting point but require substantial original writing and set out an author's and/or director's point of view. MEDIA support will not be granted for any other form of documentary, in particular reports, news programmes and magazines, talk shows, reality shows, "docusoaps", or educational, teaching and "how-to" programmes.

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D

Distributor's net revenues

In Selective Scheme - distributor's net revenues = [Revenues as approved by the Commission - (Total Actual Costs - Advance - Subsidy)]

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E

Eligible categories of projects

Only the following categories of audiovisual projects are eligible for support by MEDIA's Development funding and TV Broadcasting schemes, or as the complementary work for an Interactive Project application:

Fiction (one-off and series, minimum duration 50 minutes
Creative documentary (one-off and series, minimum duration 25 minutes)
Animation (one-off or series, minimum duration 24 minutes).

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European audiovisual works

- the work must be majority produced by companies established in one or more countries participating in MEDIA 2007
and
- the work must be produced with the significant participation of professionals who are nationals/residents of countries participating in MEDIA 2007. 'Significant participation' is defined as having 10 or more points on the basis of the table below, (or the biggest share of points if the total is less than 19 in the case of documentaries or animation films):

	POINTS
Director	3
Scriptwriter	3
Composer	1
Actor 1	2
Actor 2	2
Actor 3	2
Artistic Director / Production Designer	1
Director of Photography	1
Editor	1
Sound	1
Shooting Location	1
Laboratory	1
TOTAL	19

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European independent production company

"European" means registered in a country participating in the MEDIA Programme and majority owned by nationals from those countries.

"Independent" means independent from broadcasters i.e. no more than 25% of a production company's share capital is held by a single broadcaster (50% where several broadcasters are involved) or where, over a three-year period, less than 90% of a production company's revenue is generated from sales to a single broadcaster.

"Production company" means a business which has the production of audiovisual works as its main activity. Applications from individuals are not eligible for funding and cannot be submitted.

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European production company

A company whose main activity is audiovisual production and which is registered in one of the Member States of the European Union or the countries participating in the MEDIA Programme, and which is owned and continues to be owned, either directly or via majority participation by nationals from these countries.

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L

Low audiovisual production capacity countries

All countries participating in the MEDIA Programme are considered as having a low audiovisual production capacity except: France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

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M

MEDA countries

MEDA is a support system set up to provide financial and economic co-operation under a Euro-Mediterranean partnership. It enables the European Union to provide financial and technical assistance to southern Mediterranean countries: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey.

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N

Non-national film

In MEDIA distribution schemes - a film that originates from the territory different from that of the distributor or dvd/video publisher

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O

Open Media Production Environment

This is one of the eligible activities in the Pilot Projects scheme.

An Open Media Production Environment can be defined as a set of innovative, powerful software tools for the creation, production and exchange of content, which uses service-oriented central resources and parallel workflows based on open standards and is designed with high levels of inter-operability. It encourages the production of audiovisual content within an integrated semantic environment by production companies. Access to such content to all involved is facilitated by the use of graphical user interfaces and intuitive navigation tools, which assists the collaborative process.

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P

Participating countries (in the MEDIA Programme)

There are currently 33 countries participating in the MEDIA Programme, which includes:

* Member States of the European Union as of 1/1/2007: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, UK

- Countries of the European Economic Area participating in the MEDIA Programme (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway)

- Croatia (as of 17/3/2008)

- Switzerland

- Bosnia and Herzegovina (under the condition of the finalisation of the negotiation process and the formalisation of the participation of this country in the MEDIA Programme).

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S

Significant European participation

Signifcant European participation is when 10 out of the following 19 points are scored as European by involving citizens/residents from countries participating in the MEDIA Programme.

Category	Points
Director	3
Scriptwriter	3
Composer	1
Actor 1	2
Actor 2	2
Actor 3	2
Production Design/Art Direction	1
Director of Photography	1
Editor	1
Sound	1
Shooting location	1
Laboratory	1
Total	19

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T

Transnational

The term 'Transnational' is used by the MEDIA Programme instead of 'International' when referring to the distribution of films or movement of professionals etc, across borders between countries.

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