The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) Bertha Fund has announced a call for project submissions for the IDFA Bertha Fund (IBF) Europe – Minority Co-production funding scheme, with the deadline for submissions set for April 14.
The IDFA Bertha Fund is inviting European producers to collaborate with filmmakers from Africa, and other continents, including Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Oceania on high-quality feature-length documentary projects. The scheme is open to documentary projects in all stages of production, with a maximum contribution of €40,000 per project.
The ideal stage for project submissions is late production and beyond, due to funding restrictions regarding confirmed financing and delivery.
According to the Fund’s mission, “the selection committee will pay particular attention to supporting producers from countries with limited national co-production funding schemes, or from countries that are not yet fully involved in international co-productions.”
How to Apply
To be eligible for the IDFA Bertha Fund’s IBF Europe – Minority Co-Production scheme, applicants must meet specific requirements. The project must be a creative documentary with a minimum length of 60 minutes. Furthermore, the applicant must have demonstrable experience in film production and/or co-production.
Applicants are encouraged to make their submissions to the Fund by creating an account on the MyIDFA account page and submitting their applications through the portal.
The entry form must include basic project details, a list of crew members, a logline, synopsis, project description, topic summary or motivation, and biographies and filmographies of the director(s) and producers. A link to audiovisual material, a paragraph explaining the applicant producer’s involvement in the project, and a paragraph explaining the co-production structure must also be included.
When submitting the application, applicants must upload several documents, including a complete production budget and finance plan, a signed co-production agreement, and an extract of registration. Audiovisual material of the project, with a minimum length of 3 minutes and a maximum of 20 minutes, must also be uploaded. This material must be posted on Vimeo or YouTube, with English subtitles if necessary, and must remain online for at least three months following the deadline.
Previous Recipients
Previous recipients of funding in this category include No Other Land (directed by Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal, and Rachel Szor), Songs of Slow Burning Earth (directed by Olha Zhurba), The Brink of Dreams (directed by Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir), and Farming the Revolution (directed by Nishtha Jain).