Slate development funding

Three to five projects in development, genres and playback platforms can be mixed.

Individual projects or series for different platforms with the following minimum lengths (for series, the individual episodes are added to give the total length):

All projects must be developed under the responsibility of the Swiss production company submitting the application.

The majority of the rights to all projects must be held by the applicant production company at the time of application and throughout the entire development period.

The following contracts are recognised:​

• Option agreement for the rights to the pre-existing work and screenplay contract or
• Screenplay contract for the original work between the author and production company or
• Unilateral transfer of rights if the author is also a producer, shareholder or employee of the production company;
• Co-production or co-development agreement governing majority ownership.

The first day of shooting may take place no earlier than eight months after the application is submitted.

The majority of projects must be conceived as co-productions with an independent production company from a country that has ratified the European Convention on Cinematographic Co-production (in the 1992 or 2017 version) and must potentially be recognised as an official co-production by the FOC. Audiovisual media services are generally not considered independent production companies.

Ineligible projects
Live recordings; TV game shows; talk shows; reality shows; music videos; video games; interactive books; educational, school and learning programmes; documentaries for tourism promotion; making-ofs; reporting and animal reports; news programmes and docu-soaps; Projects with racist, pornographic or violence-glorifying content; works of an advertising nature; institutional productions that serve to promote an institution and/or its activities.

Independent Swiss production companies (registered office in Switzerland; neither wholly nor partially owned by, nor under the significant influence of, a audiovisual media service) that:

• have existed for at least 36 months (to be demonstrated, for example, by a commercial register extract);
• have film production as their main activity;
• have produced a reference work within the five years preceding the application (see details below).

For companies that have already received Slate funding: to submit a new Slate application, they must have rendered accounts of at least one project from the previous Slate and begun its production, or have rendered accounts of the entire Slate.

To submit an application, a company must have produced a reference work within the five calendar years preceding the call that fulfils the criteria of this funding scheme.

The applicant company must either:

• have fully produced the reference work; or
• in the case of a co-production, have held the majority share.

A reference work may also be recognised if the managing director of the applicant company is personally credited as the (delegate) producer (personal credit). In this case, the work may have been produced for another company.

Additionally, the work must have been commercially distributed in at least three countries outside Switzerland within the past three calendar years. Commercial distribution includes a theatrical or TV release (the broadcast date is decisive), as well as online distribution or sales through a world sales agent, provided that proof of income (revenues report) from the reference period is available. DVD or festival distribution is not accepted.

Example
Deadline: 22 April 2025
Reference work produced from 1 January 2020
Reference work distributed in at least three countries outside Switzerland from 1 January 2022

Tip
Reference works and documents such as commercial register extracts are used for the formal verification of production companies and are stored with MEDIA Desk Suisse. If the documents from a previous application are still valid, they do not need to be resubmitted.

If any of the following applies to a project, it cannot be included in an application:

• A project has been rejected once under this scheme and was not revised before being resubmitted;
• A project has already been submitted twice for the MEDIA compensating measures;
• A project has been rejected twice by the Federal Office of Culture for production funding;
• A project has received a letter of intent from the Federal Office of Culture for production, or Succès Cinéma film funding credits have already been invested in the project’s production.

There is one annual deadline for Slates in summer and two deadlines for Single Projects (spring and autumn). Companies may submit a maximum of one application per deadline. Applications can be submitted at any time once the call has opened on the FPF funding platform; however, they are only evaluated after the official deadline. The date of submission may be important for claiming costs already incurred and for complying with the eight-month deadline for the start of principal photography.

The maximum grants are determined according to the number and type of projects included in the Slate. In all cases, the maximum contribution per Slate is CHF 220,000. The maximum contributions per project are as follows:

• Feature films with a production budget < CHF 1.65 million: CHF 33'000
• Feature films with a production budget > CHF 1.65 million: CHF 55'000
• Creative documentaries: CHF 33'000
• Animated films: CHF 60'000
• Series: CHF 60'000

Total federal funding (including MEDIA compensating measures, funding from the Federal Office of Culture, Succès Cinéma support, and contributions from other federal departments) may not exceed 70% of the Swiss financing. Financial support through the MEDIA compensating measures may cover up to 70% of the eligible costs (see below).

Costs must have been incurred by the applicant company and are eligible from the date of application until the start of production. The decisive factor is the date of payment, not the date of the contract.

• Acquisition of authors’ rights (eligible up to 12 months prior to the application);
• Research activities (including archive research);
• Scriptwriting (from treatment to final draft);
• Pre-production costs for attaching key crew members and cast;
• Preparation costs for the production budget and financing plan;
• Identification and negotiations with business partners, co-producers and financiers;
• Preparation of the shooting schedule up to approval;
• Marketing and distribution plan (identifying distribution territories and buyers, presentations at festivals and markets);
• Production of the teaser;
• Up to 7.5% overheads, provided these expenses are not budgeted separately.

Applications are evaluated by two European experts with MEDIA experience using a points-based system. The experts remain anonymous, and the list of the expert pool is published on the Results page at the end of each year. If a slate or a project within it is evaluated for a second time, it will be assigned to a new expert, who receives a summary of the arguments from the first rejection.

Slates that receive at least 70 points are eligible for funding. If the number of eligible slates exceeds the available budget, those with the highest scores will be funded.

You can find the detailed criteria and the full allocation of points in the Evaluation Sheet under “Resources” (at the bottom of the page).

The results are usually available ten weeks after the deadline.

A project may be submitted a maximum of two times. If a Slate includes a Single Project that has already been rejected once, it must have been demonstrably further developed before being resubmitted.

For the development of co-production projects with Swiss minority participation, the Minority Co-development funding scheme is available.

For projects in development, there is also the Majority Swis co-development scheme, under which a company may submit one application per deadline (maximum of two per year). Companies that have not yet fully rendered accounts of a Slate grant from the MEDIA compensating measures are not eligible to apply for Single Project funding. To submit a new Slate application, they must have rendered accounts of at least one project from the previous Slate and begun its production, or have rendered accounts of the entire Slate.

Applications must be submitted via the Federal Office of Culture's FPF funding platform.