funded film and television projects in Austria – status quo

Now that I know more about the the future Academy Award guidelines (from 2024) for “Best Picture” nominations, I would like to take a closer look at the television and cinema scene in Austria. What film funding opportunities are there and is there already a clear guideline for a more diverse production crew or stories. What is the status quo among filmmakers in Austria and do they even need these guidelines?

The largest funding institutions are the state-owned “Österreichisches Filminstitut” (Austrian Film Institute), the “Filmfonds Wien” (Vienna Film Fund) and RTR’s “Fernsehfonds Austria” (Austria Television Fund), which together represent around three-quarters of the total Austrian film funding budget. During my research I only found gender specific guidelines for the “Österreichisches Filminstitut – öfi”.

Gender Initiative – Österreichisches Filminstitut (öfi)

Since the beginning of 2019 filmmakers in Austria have the possibility to qualify themselves for the “Gender Incentive” which is an additional financial support of 30,000€ when reaching a specific number of points. How the points are received is shown in the next illustration. This concerns only the people behind the production and not the creative work/plot/characters.

breakdown of the Gender Initiative scoring system (“the imbalance of the points of the individual departments does not represent a valuation, but rather corresponds to the degree of underrepresentation of women in the areas affected.”)

Second Austrian Film Gender Report

The University of Innsbruck has compiled an “Austrian Film Gender Report” on behalf of the öfi. Therefore, a quantitative analysis of the film and television projects funded by the largest Austrian subsidizers has been made (2017 to 2019). The following statements (and more) can be taken throughout this report: