European Film Distribution

• Improvement in the trans-national distribution of recent non-national European films.
• Increase in the investment in the production, acquisition, promotion, theatrical and online distribution of non-national European films.
• Develop links between the production and distribution sector thus improving the competitive position of non-national European films.

• In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:− be legal entities (public or private bodies)− be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:− Creative Europe Participating Countries:− EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories(OCTs))− non-EU countries:− listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Creative Europe Programme (list of participating countries).
• Companies established in one of the countries participating in the MEDIA strand of the Creative Europe Programme and be owned directly or indirectly, wholly or by majority participation, by nationals from such countries. When a company is publicly listed, the location of the stock exchange will in principle determine its nationality.
• European companies active in the audiovisual sector as cinema / theatrical distributor involved in commercial activity designed to bring to the attention of a wide audience a film for the purpose of exploitation in cinema theatres. This shall be the principal activity of the company or division of the company.
• The cinema / theatrical distributor shall fulfil the following criteria:
  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 the release date, plan, control and execute the distribution and promotion campaign);
  3. pay directly the associated distribution costs; and
  4. have theatrical distribution operations in the country concerned.
• These are guidelines only please download the full 2025 European Film Distribution call document to carefully check eligibility and requirements.

There are two phases for the eligible activities:

• PHASE 1 - Generation of a potential fund. A potential fund will be:
  • attributed on the basis of the eligible admissions achieved by the European nonnational films distributed by eligible distributors
  • based upon a co-efficient per eligible admission according to the nationality of the film and the territory of distribution;
  • Eligible admissions are generated by eligible non-national European films
  • up to a maximum threshold per film and per distributor and with minimum availability thresholds per applicant, depending on its nationality.
  • The potential fund generated will be obtained by multiplying the number of eligible admissions achieved in 2024 by a co-efficient per eligible admission. The eligible coefficient per admission is fixed according to the country of distribution and the nationality of the film.
  • For full details of PHASE 1 and the coefficient applicable to Ireland, please download the full 2025 European Film Distribution call document.
• PHASE 2 – Eligible reinvestment activities
  • The reinvestment can be made on a maximum of 12 different eligible non-national films.
  • The films declared must comply with the criteria set out above relating to the eligibility of films and must be non-national for the distributor.
  • For full details of PHASE 2, please download the full 2025 European Film Distribution call document.

• Project budget (maximum grant amount): €1,000,000 per project.
• The grant will be a budget-based (actual costs, with unit cost and flat-rate elements). This means that it will reimburse ONLY certain types of costs (eligible costs) and costs that were actually incurred for your project (NOT the budgeted costs). For unit costs and flat-rates, you can charge the amounts calculated as explained in the Grant
  Agreement (see art 6 and Annex 2 and 2a).
• The costs will be reimbursed at the funding rate fixed in the Grant Agreement (70%).