In 2010 the MEDIA Programme will support 62 training courses for audiovisual professionals across Europe. Over €8.5 million was awarded to training organisations from MEDIA's Initial Training and Continuous Training schemes. This includes €6.7 million for courses that offer training to working professionals in skills ranging from scriptwriting and digital production, through to advanced producer training schemes, digital restoration and open source software. 

Professionals across Europe will benefit from MEDIA support through these courses by enjoying affordable course fees and the opportunity to train with their European counterparts. Four UK-based training providers were successful in their MEDIA applications for the first time this year. These are Power to the Pixel for the Cross Media Film Lab, Seize the Media for Introduction to Transmedia, the Independent Cinema Office for the Cultural Cinema Exhibition Course and The Bureau's Save Our Scripts (SOS). In total over €300,000 was awarded to UK-based training providers.

Alongside these exciting new additions to the list of MEDIA-supported courses, several large awards were made to the courses MEDIA has supported for many years, and which have become well-established centres for excellence in European audiovisual training. The largest award was made to the Media Business School, based in Spain, which received €470,000 towards running several different courses in 2010 covering management skills for the audiovisual sector. Other large awards went to EAVE, the Berlinale Talent Campus, ACE and Documentary Campus.

In addition to support for working professionals, MEDIA's Initial Training scheme will support 13 groupings of European film schools in 2010. Once again, UK-based film schools lead more groupings than those based in other countries. The National Film and Television School (NFTS) will receive funding for the third year running for the Passion to Market scheme, which is a collaboration involving students and staff from France's La Fémis and Poland's National Film, Television and Theatre School. Edinburgh Napier University continues to co-ordinate the Engage course, in combination with Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) in Ireland, Balti Filmi-ja Meediakool (Baltic Film and Media School) in Estonia and the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, Finland. The London Film School is continuing to co-ordinate a grouping of film schools for the 'Il était une fois...under €1m - European Film School Forum II', which brings together film students from the UK, Denmark, Hungary and France. In total €410,000 was awarded to groupings led by UK film schools.