The Intended and Unintended Consequences of Automatic Funding

• In Event: Screen Funding and Commissioning as Interventions

Abstract

Automatic funding (tax incentives and match funded inwards investment) is often portrayed as unequivocally beneficial to the receiving screen sector. It brings foreign investment; creates networking opportunities; develops and retains skilled workers; and builds production capacity in the indigenous screen economies. This paper, however, problematizes this form of funding intervention. Based on interviews with national screen funders, it compares the impact and uptake of automatic funding in the Netherlands (where this funding form is well established), Denmark (where it has been abandoned), and Scotland (where tax incentives were recently introduced). Often automatic funding are not introduced as proactive measures, but rather in response to failing screen industries or competition from neighboring automatic funding schemes. Moreover, the opportunity cost of automatic funding can erode investment in home-grown productions, and since film funders have little creative input into automatically funded productions, It can undermine the overall diversity and quality of productions.

Authors

• Inge Ejbye Sorensen, Centre for Cultural Policy Research, U of Glasgow.

• Eva Novrup Redvall