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The amounts of funding that can be awarded to applicants by BSÉ/IFB under many of these programmes are limited by regulations agreed with the Irish Government or laid down by the European Commission.

STATE AID INTENSITY
Under European Commission rules with regard to intensity of state aid (i.e. the amount of funding in a project derived from subsidy funds, tax-based incentive schemes and any other support mechanisms) the amount of state aid used to finance a film project may not exceed 50% of its total cost, subject to certain exclusions:

a) where the film is considered to be ‘low budget’ or
‘difficult’ (see paragraph below);
b) where the total cost of the film project is not
more than €100,000.

Note that funds raised under Section 481 provisions in Ireland, and awards made from the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland’s Sound & Vision Fund, are both regarded as state aid; and that in an international co-production the amount of state aid in a project is the aggregate of all such funding provided from all the co-producing countries.

LOW BUDGET AND DIFFICULT FILMS
BSÉ/IFB is authorised to certify a film to be made in Ireland as ‘low budget’ or ‘difficult’. A film may be considered ‘low budget’ if its production budget does not exceed €3 million; the approved definition of ‘difficult’ can be found in the Financing Your Film section of this website.

DEVELOPMENT FUNDING LIMITS
With regard to development funding, there are limits on the amounts that can be provided to projects by BSÉ/IFB, pursuant to Irish government regulations as implemented by BSÉ/IFB.  With effect from 1st July 2008 these limits were revised and are now as follows:

(a) the maximum amount of BSÉ/IFB development funding that can be provided to any one project is €100,000 (formerly €75,000);

(b) any amount of BSÉ/IFB development funding above €50,000 to any one project (formerly €40,000) must be matched by funding from other sources.

Repayment:  BSÉ/IFB development loans must be included as a production budget line item and repayment made in full by first day of principal photography.

Effective Date:  The new limits on development funding apply to all projects in active development with BSÉ/IFB funding at 1st July 2008 and to all projects that receive a commitment of BSÉ/IFB development funding after that date.

PRODUCTION FUNDING LIMITS
With regard to production funding, similarly there are Irish government  regulations that limit the amounts that can be provided by BSÉ/IFB. With effect from 1st July 2008 a number of revisions were made to these limits.

Fiction: Irish Production / Animation Production / Documentary Production:

(a) for projects with budgets of more than €100,000 and not more than €1.5 million, BSÉ/IFB can provide up to 65% of the budget (as before but with no cap);

(b) for projects with budgets of more than €1.5 million and not more than €5 million, BSÉ/IFB can provide up to €1 million, or 40% of the budget, whichever is greater (new provision);

(c) for projects with budgets of more than €5 million, BSÉ/IFB can provide up to €2 million, or 25% of the budget, whichever is greater (adaptation of former provision).

Additionality:  The introduction of new limits should not be taken to mean that BSÉ/IFB will provide higher levels of funding than before to each and every project.  Amounts of funding requested that exceed the old limits will be scrutinised with particular intensity and granted only where BSÉ/IFB is convinced that the project cannot be realised otherwise.  Even in cases of demonstrable need, BSÉ/IFB’s current level of resources dictates that funding awarded to any one project is highly unlikely to exceed €1 million, and more than €1.5 million should not be contemplated.

Note re 2010 Budget:  For the reasons explained in the Overview, the amount of production funding available to BSÉ/IFB in 2010 is approximately 10% less than in 2009, when BSÉ/IFB's budget was already subject to a significant cut. With demand on these resources running high, and since BSÉ/IFB is concerned to support as many projects as possible, for the time being applicants should continue to regard €600,000 as the likely upper remit of funding to be awarded to a project unless exceptional circumstances prevail. 

Special Condition:  Following the introduction of these new funding limits, it is a condition of BSÉ/IFB funding of Fiction: Irish Production projects that the production budget must contain adequate line items for the making of marketing materials.  This requirement, which does not apply to other types of Fiction projects, or to Animation Production or Documentary Production projects, is explained in detail on the relevant Funding Programmes page.

Ultra-Low Budget Projects:  European Commission regulations still allow BSÉ/IFB to provide 100% production funding to film projects capable of being realised and delivered for a total production cost of not more than €100,000.  The Special Condition outlined above does not apply to such projects.

Fiction: Creative Co-production / Fiction: International Production / Completion:

(d) projects funded under these programmes will continue to be subject to the basic limit that governed BSÉ/IFB funding before 1st July 2008: BSÉ/IFB can provide up to €750,000, or 25% of the budget, whichever is greater;

(e) in practice, BSÉ/IFB funding for Creative Co-production projects will not exceed 90% of the project’s estimated expenditure on Irish personnel, goods and services; and in the case of International Production projects BSÉ/IFB will expect such expenditure to represent a significant multiple of any award.

Regional Support funding:  Where this is provided in addition to any kind of production funding the aggregate of the two awards must comply with the relevant limits as set out here.

Effective Date:  The new limits on production funding apply to projects that started principal photography on or after 1st July 2008.

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