01 Proposal · Page Limits and Layout Proposals are limited to a maximum of 50 pages for Part B (technical description). Evaluators will not consider any additional pages beyond this limit. The application must be readable, accessible and printable. Documents must be uploaded to the correct category in the Submission System, otherwise the proposal may be considered incomplete and inadmissible. Minimum font size is Arial 9 points, page size is A4, and margins (top, bottom, left and right) must be at least 15 mm (not including headers and footers).
02 Eligible · Countries for Participation Applicants must be established in one of the eligible countries, which include: EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories - OCTs), listed EEA countries, and countries associated to the Creative Europe Programme. Additionally, applicants must be established in one of the countries participating fully in the MEDIA strand and owned directly or indirectly, wholly or by majority participation, by nationals from such countries. When an entity is publicly listed, if the nationality of the physical persons owning it cannot be established, the location of the stock exchange in a country participating fully in the MEDIA strand will determine its eligibility.
03 Applicant · Eligibility Conditions Applicants must be legal entities (public or private bodies). They must be European companies active in the audiovisual sector as cinema/theatrical distributors involved in commercial activity designed to bring films to the attention of a wide audience for exploitation in cinema theatres. This must be the principal activity of the company or division. The cinema/theatrical distributor must: (1) be the holder of the theatrical distribution rights for the film in the country concerned; (2) carry out the theatrical distribution of the film in the country concerned (determine release date, plan, control and execute the distribution and promotion campaign); (3) pay directly the associated distribution costs; (4) have theatrical distribution operations in the country concerned. Only applications by single applicants are allowed (single beneficiaries with affiliated entities and other participants allowed if needed). Applicants cannot submit more than one proposal under this call.
04 Financial · and Operational Capacity Requirements Applicants must have stable and sufficient resources to successfully implement the projects and contribute their share. Financial capacity will be assessed based on documents uploaded in the Participant Register during grant preparation (e.g., profit and loss account, balance sheet, audit report from approved external auditor certifying accounts for the last closed financial year). The analysis is based on neutral financial indicators but also considers dependency on EU funding, deficit and revenue in previous years. The financial capacity check is normally done for coordinators, except for public bodies, Member State organisations, international organisations, and entities active in cultural and creative sectors that received over 50% of annual revenue from public sources over the last two years. Operational capacity requires applicants to have know-how, qualifications and resources to successfully implement projects, including sufficient experience in projects of comparable size and nature. This is assessed based on competence and experience of applicants and project teams, including operational resources (human, technical and other). Public bodies, Member State organisations, international organisations and entities active in cultural and creative sectors receiving over 50% of annual revenue from public sources are exempted from operational capacity check. Exclusion grounds include: bankruptcy, winding up, affairs administered by courts, arrangement with creditors, suspended business activities; breach of social security or tax obligations; guilty of grave professional misconduct; committed fraud, corruption, links to criminal organisation, money laundering, terrorism-related crimes, child labour or human trafficking; shown significant deficiencies in complying with main obligations under EU contracts; guilty of irregularities; created under different jurisdiction to circumvent fiscal or social obligations; intentionally resisted investigation, check or audit.
05 Submission · and Evaluation Process All proposals must be submitted directly online via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System. Paper applications are NOT accepted. The submission is a 2-step process: (1) create a user account and register organisation in the Participant Register to receive a 9-digit participant identification code (PIC); (2) submit the proposal via the Electronic Submission System. Proposals must be submitted in 4 parts: Part A (administrative information, filled in directly online), Part B (technical description, downloaded template completed and uploaded as PDF), Part C (additional project data, filled in directly online), and Annexes (uploaded as PDF or Excel depending on file type). Proposals must be complete and contain all requested information and required annexes. An evaluation committee will assess all applications. Proposals are first checked for formal requirements (admissibility and eligibility). Proposals found admissible and eligible are evaluated against operational capacity and award criteria, then ranked according to scores. All proposals receive an evaluation result letter. Successful proposals are invited for grant preparation; others are put on reserve list or rejected.
06 Evaluation · Criteria and Scoring Methodology The award criterion for this call is Relevance (100 points maximum), which assesses the relevance of the project taking into account performance of the applicant on the European market. Scoring is based on total admissions obtained in 2026 per application: 200 to 30,000 admissions = 70 points; 30,001 to 70,000 admissions = 80 points; 70,001 to 150,000 admissions = 90 points; more than 150,001 admissions = 100 points. Quality of content and activities, Project management, and Dissemination criteria are marked as not applicable (n/a). Maximum points achievable is 100 points. Individual thresholds per criterion are not applicable. Overall threshold is 70 points. Proposals that pass the overall threshold of 70 points will be considered for funding within the limits of available budget (up to the budget ceiling). Other proposals will be rejected.
07 Application · Submission Deadline The deadline for submission of applications is 8 April 2027 at 17:00:00 CET (Brussels time). Proposals must be submitted before this deadline. After this deadline, the system is closed and proposals can no longer be submitted. Call deadlines cannot be extended. Applicants are strongly advised to complete their applications sufficiently in advance of the deadline to avoid any last minute technical problems. Problems due to last minute submissions (e.g., congestion) will be entirely at the applicant's risk.
08 Evaluation · and Grant Agreement Timeline The indicative timeline for the call is as follows: Call opening on 3 December 2026; Deadline for submission on 8 April 2027 at 17:00:00 CET (Brussels); Evaluation period from April to August 2027; Information on evaluation results in October 2027; Grant Agreement signature in January 2028. The project starting date and duration will be fixed in the Grant Agreement. Normally the starting date will be after grant signature. A retroactive starting date can be granted exceptionally for duly justified reasons, but never earlier than the proposal submission date.
09 Legal · and Financial Grant Agreement Setup The grant will be a budget-based grant (actual costs, with unit cost and flat-rate elements) that reimburses only certain types of costs (eligible costs) and costs actually incurred for the project (not budgeted costs). The maximum grant amount is EUR 1,000,000 per project. The funding rate is 70%. Costs will be reimbursed at this 70% funding rate. Grants may NOT produce a profit (surplus of revenues plus EU grant over costs). For-profit organisations must declare their revenues and if there is a profit, it will be deducted from the final grant amount. The final grant amount may be reduced in case of non-compliance with the Grant Agreement. Budget categories for this call include: A. Personnel costs (not applicable); B. Subcontracting costs; C. Purchase costs (C.1 Travel and subsistence - not applicable; C.2 Equipment; C.3 Other goods, works and services); E. Indirect costs (7% flat-rate of eligible direct costs). The project activities must be organised in the following work packages: WP 1 - Reinvestment activity plan (mandatory). Milestones and deliverables will be managed through the Portal Grant Management System and reflected in Annex 1 of the Grant Agreement. The Model Grant Agreement and all relevant templates are available on Portal Reference Documents. Prefinancing will normally be paid 30 days from entry into force/financial guarantee (if required), whichever is latest. There will be no interim payments. Liability regime includes options for joint and several liability or individual financial responsibility.
10 Application · Form Templates and Documents The application must be submitted in 4 parts using templates provided in the Submission System: Part A contains administrative information about participants (future coordinator, beneficiaries, affiliated entities and associated partners) and summarised budget, filled in directly online. Part B contains the technical description of the project, downloaded as a mandatory Word template from the Portal Submission System, completed, assembled and re-uploaded as a PDF file (maximum 50 pages). Part C contains additional project data and the project's contribution to EU programme key performance indicators, filled in directly online. Mandatory annexes and supporting documents must be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed, assembled and re-uploaded as PDF files (or Excel where applicable): PDF with information about film(s)/work(s) generated from the Creative Europe MEDIA Database; Declaration on Independence and Ownership control (template available in Submission System); Certified admissions (certification of admissions by the designated national authority, template available in Submission System). At proposal submission, applicants must confirm they have the mandate to act for all applicants and that information is correct and complete. Before signing the grant, each beneficiary and affiliated entity must sign a declaration of honour (DoH). Proposals without full support will be rejected.
11 Certified · Admissions Requirements Certified admissions must be provided as a mandatory annex. Admissions must comply with the following criteria: they must be achieved between 1 January and 31 December 2026; a normal ticket price (average price on the territory for commercial release) was actually paid for commercial release (including any special offers or discounts), therefore excluding admissions where no fee was paid; they must be clearly identifiable and certified by the national authority designated by the Member States; they must be declared in the Creative Europe MEDIA Database by applicants who are eligible in the country; they must be declared by distributors who are eligible in the country; the films must be eligible non-national European films in the country of distribution. All admissions must be certified by the designated national authority. It is the responsibility of the distributor to have its admissions certified by the submission date. In absence of certification, admissions will be ineligible and no support will be awarded. The certified admissions template requires information on: distributor company name in full; territory of distribution (one worksheet per territory); original title of film(s) as per MEDIA Film database; Media Film ID code (if available); release date; total number of admissions complying with criteria; breakdown of admissions (school screenings, festivals/special screenings, subscriptions/loyalty cards). The national authority must certify the admissions and provide information on the standard system of reporting on admissions in their country, including whether school screenings, festivals/special screenings, and subscription admissions are included or excluded from the number of admissions and whether they are identifiable in databases used.
12 Independence · and Ownership Control Declaration A Declaration on Independence and Ownership control must be provided as a mandatory annex. This declaration requires applicants to provide information on the ownership and control structure of the applicant organisation. For each shareholder/owner, the following information must be declared: name of the shareholder/owner; nationality of shareholder (for physical persons) or country of registration (for legal persons/companies); status of shareholder; main activity if legal person (leave empty for natural persons); number of shares; 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, the location of the stock exchange must be provided. The declaration must demonstrate that the applicant is owned directly or indirectly, wholly or by majority participation, by nationals from countries participating fully in the MEDIA strand. Insufficient information on ownership and control may result in the applicant being considered ineligible.
13 Creative · Europe MEDIA Database Film Information A PDF with information about film(s)/work(s) generated from the Creative Europe MEDIA Database must be attached to the proposal as a mandatory annex. This document should contain information about the films that the applicant intends to distribute and for which admissions are being declared. The information must be extracted from the Creative Europe MEDIA Database (accessible at https://creative-europe-media-database.eacea.ec.europa.eu). For each film, the applicant should provide the information available in the database, which typically includes: original title of the film; Media Film ID code (if available); production country/countries; production year; director; genre; duration; production company information; and other relevant details about the film's eligibility and characteristics. This information is used to verify that the films meet the eligibility criteria for the call, including that they are European non-national films, have a minimum duration of 60 minutes, are works of fiction or documentary, and meet other specified requirements.