Official film and television co-production in Australia

An international film or television co-production is a production made by production companies in different countries. This note focuses on ‘official’ Australian co-productions, that is, co-productions that meet the requirements for benefits under the Australian Official Co-Production Program. It looks at trends in production, the potential impact of recent changes to film funding, and what lies ahead for Australia’s involvement in co-production.

Official co-productions are made possible by formal agreements between countries. For filmmakers, the key attraction of a treaty co-production is that it qualifies as a national production in each of the partner nations. Thus, it can access benefits that are available to the local film and television industry in more than one country. Benefits may include government subsidies, tax concessions and inclusion in domestic television broadcast quotas.

The Australian government has signed official film co-production agreements with the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Ireland, Israel, Germany, China and, most recently, Singapore (as treaties); and France and New Zealand (as memoranda of understanding or MOUs. Official co-production agreements set the criteria that a production must meet in order to be considered an official co-production. Criteria may cover co-financing, creative participation and copyright ownership.

International co-productions also occur outside the framework of official co-productions, either with countries that do not have an agreement with Australia, or as projects that do not satisfy official co-production criteria. Examples of the former include the Australia/US co-productions Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (2001) and Farscape (1999–2003).

Australian co-production agreements are administered by the Australian Film Commission (AFC) on behalf of the Australian Government. (In July 2008 the AFC will be merged with other film agencies to become Screen Australia; the new organisation will then have oversight over co-productions.) The overriding objective is to maintain an overall balance between the creative and financial contributions of each country over time. Accordingly, there is some discretion in granting co-production status to an individual co-production if there is an imbalance between financial and creative contributions.

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