Film Funding Options

Our State and Federal Governments support the film and television industry through generous financial incentives.

And guess what – you are allowed to double dip. A single production can access both a State and Federal incentive program.

Read more about Melbourne’s financial incentives and local investment here.

Would you like Federal Government funding with that? Learn about those incentives here.

'Government assistance [in Melbourne] has been huge’ Mark Johnson – Producer, Don’t be Afraid of the Dark

You may not realise this, but our Federal Government is a huge fan of your work.

Seriously. They love what you do, and they’d love you to make your next project here. That’s why they’ve developed these three enticing incentives:

Producer Offset

Screen Australia is the Federal Government funding body for the Australian screen production industry and, being such big movie fans, they offer two very generous Producer Offsets, for feature films and for everything else.

Here’s the fine print: The value of the Producer Offset is calculated based on a project’s qualifying Australian production expenditure (QAPE). It is worth:

• 40% of QAPE incurred on a feature film
• 20% of QAPE incurred on programs other than feature films (TV series, mini-series or telemovies, short-form animations, non-feature documentary, or direct-to-DVD or web-distributed programming).

Eligible projects must have Significant Australian Content to be entitled to this incentive.

Crikey! What does Significant Australian Content mean? 

This is what Screen Australia considers when assessing a production’s Significant Australian Content:

• The subject matter;
• The place where the production was made;
• The nationalities and places of residence of the people who took part in making it;
• The details of production expenditure incurred; and
• Any other matters that Screen Australia considers to be relevant.

Now here’s the good news. Official co-productions automatically meet the significant Australian content test.

 Location Offset

But wait, there’s more!

A 16.5% rebate is also available on qualifying expenditure to large budget film and television productions that film in Australia.

 Post/Digital/VFX Offset

Want to take advantage of our award winning post production facilities? Smart move. There’s a 30% rebate available for projects that spend at least AU$500,000 on post, digital and visual effects work in Australia – regardless of where the production was shot.

 Don’t forget to double dip.

Now for the really, really good news – the mutually exclusive Producer, Location or Post/Digital/VFX offsets can be combined with any of our state incentives.

To find out more about all these offsets please get in touch. 

Here’s where we sweeten the deal.

We really want you to make your next project in Melbourne. So to sweeten the deal we’ve come up with four very sweet incentive/investment programs. 

Production Incentive Attraction Fund (PIAF)

Our generous PIAF grants are aimed at interstate and offshore productions to film or post produce/VFX feature films or television series in Victoria.

To qualify, footloose productions must spend a minimum of 70% of their total production budget in
the state, or a minimum of AU$3.5 million. In the case of post production only grants, a minimum of three Victorian post production/ visual effects services must be used.

Regional Location Assistance Fund (RLAF)

Thinking of going country? Our RLAF grant encourages local and footloose projects (projects which have qualified interstate and/or international alternatives) to use locations outside metropolitan Melbourne.

RLAF assists projects by offsetting some of the additional costs incurred when filming in regional areas such as accommodation, living overheads and travel.

A project must use regional Victorian locations during principal photography for a minimum of five shooting days to be eligible for this grant.

Film Victoria Production Investment  

If you’re a producer living in a country that has an official coproduction treaty with Australia, you’re in luck. You can apply for production investment from Film Victoria.

For more information on this or any of our programs, simply get in touch and we’ll be more than happy to talk through these tempting incentives a little more.