Eurimages updates its governance regulation

IRIS 2020-9:1/5

Julio Talavera

European Audiovisual Observatory

Eurimages, the Council of Europe's film co-production fund, has changed its governance rules in order to lighten the selection process for projects applying for funds and to be better prepared to adapt to the currently changing film and audiovisual industry. Therefore, its Board of Management will focus on strategic planning and procedural rules, delegating day-to-day management to an Executive Committee. Moreover, external experts will be in charge of assessing the applications.

Since its creation in 1988, the fund has significantly increased its membership - from the original dozen countries to its current 41 members (39 European countries and two associate members: Argentina and Canada). This growth reflects the success of the fund, but at the same time it has become detrimental to agile decision-making. On 9 September, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted Resolution CM/Res(2020)8 amending the fund’s regulations. According to Article 2.5, the Executive Committee "shall be composed of one third of the representatives using a system of rotation amongst all the member States of the Fund (including associate members). Rotation will ensure, wherever possible, a geographical and gender balance amongst the representatives."  The Executive Committee will be in charge of day-to-day managerial decisions and the adoption of recommendations on working groups, allowing the Board of Management to devote more time to defining a long-term vision, as well as to its current tasks of adopting the budget and establishing the rules for support.

According to Article 2.2, the Board of Management "shall avail itself of independent experts from the cultural field, such as film and audiovisual professionals, […] subsequently hired by the Secretariat, based on public procurement principles." A pool of experts will be created from amongst those who respond to a call for expression of interest, yet to be launched; they will be selected by a computer algorithm based on their profile, country and gender. Each group of evaluating experts will be composed of five members, three of whom must be either a producer, director, scriptwriter, sales agent or distributor. The other two can be from other professions, for example DOPs or editors. 

These changes stem from the results of the external assessment on the fund’s performance and governance conducted by Ernst & Young in 2018, and are planned to be implemented in the course of 2021.