01 Proposal · Page Limits and Layout Proposals are limited to a maximum of 70 pages for Part B (description of the action). Evaluators will not consider any additional pages beyond this limit. The application must be readable, accessible and printable. Applicants must check carefully the layout of the documents uploaded. The minimum font size for the creative dossier is Arial 9 points, and page size must be A4.
02 Eligible · Countries for Participation Applicants must be established in one of the eligible countries. Eligible countries include: EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories - OCTs), listed EEA countries, and countries associated to the Creative Europe Programme. Applicants must be established in one of the countries participating fully in the MEDIA strand. Associated partners can come from countries not participating in the MEDIA Strand, including non-European countries such as Korea pursuant to the audiovisual entitlement appended to the Protocol on Cultural Cooperation between the EU and Korea, though these cannot be beneficiaries.
03 Eligibility · Conditions for Applicants Applicants must be legal entities (public or private bodies). Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of at least two applicants (beneficiaries, not affiliated entities) with an eligible coordinator and at least one eligible partner established in at least two different European countries participating in the MEDIA Strand. The coordinator and partner(s) must have signed a co-development agreement. Applicants must be independent European audiovisual production companies. The coordinator must be able to demonstrate recent experience in producing internationally distributed works (one previous work since 2020 that has been released in cinemas, broadcast on television, or made available on digital platforms in at least three countries other than the applicant's country). Natural persons are not eligible except self-employed persons (sole traders). Applicants cannot submit more than one proposal under this Call as coordinator, though they can be a partner in other applications.
04 Financial · and Operational Capacity Requirements Applicants must have the know-how, qualifications and resources to successfully implement the projects and contribute their share, including sufficient experience in projects of comparable size and nature. Financial capacity will be assessed based on the applicant's financial situation. If financial capacity is not satisfactory, the granting authority may require further information, an enhanced financial responsibility regime (joint and several responsibility), prefinancing paid in instalments, prefinancing guarantees, or propose no prefinancing. Operational capacity will be assessed together with the Project Management award criterion based on competence and experience of applicants and their project teams, including operational resources (human, technical and other). Public bodies, Member State organisations, international organisations and entities active in cultural and creative sectors that have received over 50% of their annual revenue from public sources over the last two years are exempted from the operational capacity check. Applicants subject to exclusion situations cannot participate, including bankruptcy, winding up, breach of social security or tax obligations, grave professional misconduct, fraud, corruption, or irregularities.
05 Submission · and Evaluation Process Proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System. Paper submissions are not accepted. The submission process is two-step: (1) create a user account and register organisation in the Participant Register to receive a 9-digit PIC; (2) submit the proposal in 4 parts: Part A (administrative information, filled online), Part B (technical description, downloaded template completed and uploaded as PDF), Part C (additional project data, filled online), and Annexes (uploaded as PDF). Proposals must be complete with all requested information and required annexes. An evaluation committee assisted by independent outside experts will assess all applications. Proposals are first checked for formal requirements (admissibility and eligibility), then evaluated against operational capacity and award criteria, and ranked according to scores. For proposals with the same score, a priority order is determined according to specified approach.
06 Evaluation · Criteria and Scoring Methodology Proposals are evaluated against four main award criteria with a total of 100 points maximum. Relevance (40 points) assesses alignment with call objectives, sustainability and environmental strategies, and gender balance/inclusion/diversity. Quality of content and activities (20 points) evaluates quality and creative potential of the work (10 points) and potential to reach audiences at European and international level (10 points). Project management (25 points) assesses distribution of roles and responsibilities (5 points), adequacy of development strategy (10 points), and adequacy of financing strategy (10 points). Dissemination (15 points) evaluates marketing strategy (5 points) and European/international distribution plan (10 points). The overall threshold for passing is 70 points. There are no individual thresholds per criterion. Proposals that pass the overall threshold will be considered for funding within the limits of available budget.
07 Evaluation · and Grant Agreement Timeline The indicative timeline for the call is as follows: Call opening on 30 September 2026; deadline for submission on 02 March 2027 at 17:00:00 CET (Brussels time); evaluation period from March to July 2027; information on evaluation results in August 2027; Grant Agreement signature in November 2027. The project starting date will normally be after grant signature. A retroactive starting date can be granted exceptionally for duly justified reasons, but never earlier than the proposal submission date.
08 Application · Submission Deadline The deadline for submitting applications is 02 March 2027 at 17:00:00 CET (Brussels time). Proposals must be submitted before this deadline via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System. After this deadline, the system is closed and proposals can no longer be submitted. Applicants will receive a confirmation email with date and time of submission. If no confirmation email is received, the proposal has NOT been submitted.
09 Legal · and Financial Setup of Grants The grant will be a lump sum grant, meaning it will reimburse a fixed amount based on a lump sum or financing not linked to costs. The amount will be fixed by the granting authority on the basis of the estimated project budget and a funding rate of 70%. The maximum EU grant depends on the number of eligible beneficiaries: for a consortium of two eligible beneficiaries, the maximum EU grant is EUR 120,000. For each additional eligible beneficiary, the maximum EU grant increases by EUR 60,000. However, for co-development of drama series with an intended production budget of EUR 20,000,000 and above, the maximum EU grant for a consortium of two eligible beneficiaries is EUR 200,000, increasing by EUR 100,000 per additional eligible beneficiary. The grant form is lump sum, and the grant mode is action grant. Budget categories are lump sum contributions. The lump sum amount must be calculated using the detailed budget table provided, and the estimated budget must comply with basic eligibility conditions for EU actual cost grants. Costs for financial support to third parties are not allowed. After grant signature, beneficiaries will normally receive prefinancing (typically 70% of the maximum grant amount) paid 30 days from entry into force or financial guarantee, whichever is latest. There will be no interim payments. At project end, the final grant amount will be calculated; if earlier payments exceed the final amount, recovery will be requested. All payments are made to the coordinator. Prefinancing guarantees may be required and will be set during grant preparation. The guarantee should be in euro issued by an approved bank/financial institution in an EU Member State. Consortium agreement is not required for this call. Beneficiaries must have internal arrangements regarding operation and coordination to ensure proper implementation.
10 Independence · and Ownership Control Declaration Applicants must provide a mandatory declaration on independence and European ownership. This declaration must include information about all shareholders/owners, their nationality (for physical persons) or country of registration (for legal persons/companies), their status, main activity if a legal person, number of shares, and shareholding percentage. If any listed shareholder is a legal person/company, applicants must describe the FULL chain of shareholders until the level of nationals (physical persons), including percentage of shares and nationalities of such nationals. If the company is publicly listed, applicants must provide the location of the stock exchange. Insufficient information on this point may result in the applicant being considered ineligible. An independent European audiovisual production company is defined as a company which is not, directly or indirectly, majority controlled by an audiovisual media service provider, either in shareholding or commercial terms. Majority control is considered to occur when more than 25% of the share capital of a production company is held by a single audiovisual media service provider (50% when several audiovisual media service providers have shares or other means of control in the company).
11 Language · Requirements for Submission Documents Applicants must provide a declaration on the language of submitted materials. This declaration should specify the language(s) used in the creative dossier, rights contracts, and supporting documents of co-production, distribution and financing. Applicants must identify the type of document (e.g., treatment, director's note, script, teaser, contract, letter of intent, etc.) and the language(s) in which it is written, using ISO codes for languages. For DEVSLATE or DEVMINISLATE applications, applicants must include information on all projects in the slate in the same declaration, combining the information on languages. The declaration must be submitted using the mandatory template available in the Submission System.
12 Creative · Dossier Submission Requirements The creative dossier must be submitted as a PDF based on the mandatory template available in the Submission System. It will be used to evaluate the application against the award criteria defined in the Call document. The dossier should cover all projects that are part of the application. Applicants must include all information and supporting documents they have at the moment of application, in the order listed in the template. For multiple projects, each project should be separated by a new frontpage. Minimum font size is Arial 9 points, and page size must be A4. For fiction projects, the dossier can include: logline (max 2-3 sentences), link to trailer/teaser, synopsis (max 1 page), series pitch if applicable (max 3 pages), treatment (max 10 pages), episode outline for series (max 10 pages total), visual approach/mood board (max 5 pages), director's/producer's note (max 3 pages), and script sample with dialogue (max 20 pages). For creative documentary projects: logline (max 2-3 sentences), link to trailer/teaser, synopsis (max 1 page), description of context/motivation/creative nature (max 6 pages), treatment (max 6 pages), episode outline for series (max 10 pages total), and director's/producer's note (max 3 pages). For animation projects: logline (max 2-3 sentences), link to trailer/teaser, synopsis (max 1 page), description of characters/backgrounds/themes/visual approach (max 15 pages), treatment (max 10 pages), episode outline for series (max 10 pages total), director's/producer's note (max 3 pages), and script sample with dialogue (max 20 pages). Page limits must be respected and are not indicative.
13 Detailed · Budget Table Format and Requirements The detailed budget table is a mandatory template available in the Submission System and serves as the basis for fixing the lump sums for grants. Since lump sums must be reliable proxies for actual costs, the costs included MUST comply with the basic eligibility conditions for EU actual cost grants (see AGA - Annotated Grant Agreement, Article 6). This is particularly important for purchases and subcontracting, which must comply with best value for money (or if appropriate the lowest price) and be free of any conflict of interests. If the budget table contains ineligible costs, the grant may be reduced even later during project implementation or after project end. The budget table should include lump sum contributions per work package for all beneficiaries and affiliated entities. The table shows estimated EU contribution and estimated eligible lump sum contributions per work package, with forms of funding indicated as lump sum contribution or financing not linked to costs. The budget must be consistent with the global budget indicated in Part A of the application.
14 Model · Grant Agreement Key Terms and Conditions The Model Grant Agreement (MGA) sets the framework for the grant and its terms and conditions, including deliverables, reporting and payments. Key terms include: Beneficiaries are fully responsible towards the granting authority for implementing the agreement and complying with all obligations. They must implement the action to their best abilities, in good faith, and in accordance with all terms and conditions. Beneficiaries are jointly responsible for technical implementation; if one fails, others must ensure implementation without additional grant. Beneficiaries must remain eligible for the entire action duration. The coordinator acts as intermediary for all communications with the granting authority and must monitor proper implementation, distribute payments to other beneficiaries without unjustified delay, and submit deliverables and reports. Affiliated entities can charge costs under the same conditions as beneficiaries and must implement assigned tasks. Associated partners implement assigned tasks but cannot charge costs. Beneficiaries must prevent conflicts of interest and notify the granting authority immediately of any situation constituting or likely to lead to conflict. They must keep sensitive information confidential during implementation and for the time-limit set in the Data Sheet. Classified information must be handled according to applicable law. The action must be carried out in line with highest ethical standards and applicable law. Beneficiaries must respect basic EU values including human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law and human rights. Beneficiaries must process personal data in compliance with applicable data protection law (GDPR). Communication and dissemination activities must acknowledge EU support and display the European flag and funding statement. For audiovisual works, the funding statement must appear in opening credits and the European flag and funding statement in end credits. Beneficiaries must upload public project results to the Creative Europe Project Results platform. Specific communication and dissemination rules are set in Annex 5. Prefinancing is normally 70% of maximum grant amount, paid 30 days from entry into force or financial guarantee, whichever is latest. There are no interim payments. Final payment is calculated at project end; if earlier payments exceed final amount, recovery is requested. All payments made to coordinator. Beneficiaries must keep records and supporting documents to prove proper implementation until the time-limit set in the Data Sheet. Checks, reviews, audits and investigations may be conducted by the granting authority. The agreement is governed by applicable EU law, supplemented if necessary by Belgian law. Disputes concerning interpretation, application or validity must be brought before EU General Court or Court of Justice.