Swedish film and TV bodies criticise “first-come, first-served” funding process

Letter to Minister of Culture Parisa Liljestrand

We, the undersigned, represent Swedish producers, co-producers, commissioners, and distributors. Together, we finance the majority of films and drama series produced in Sweden. With this letter, we wish to express our collective desire for the government to promptly implement a change in the application process for support for audiovisual production (production incentives).

It was very positive when Sweden, two years ago, as one of the last countries in Europe, introduced production incentives for film and TV. According to Regulation (2022:1386) on state support for the production of audiovisual works, the purpose of the incentive is to “increase the number of audiovisual works wholly or partially produced in Sweden,” with socio-economic effects such as economic growth, increased employment, regional development, exposure of Sweden, positive effects on tourism, etc., both by enabling large Swedish productions that would otherwise be filmed abroad to be brought home and by attracting foreign productions.

We perceive that the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth (Tillväxtverket), in implementing the incentive, has been responsive to the industry’s functioning and needs. It has been appreciated that the application process is simple and not unnecessarily complicated. In the first two years, we can state that 25 Swedish productions with a total budget of over 1.7 billion SEK have received the incentive and were filmed in Sweden.

However, the rule in Section 11 of the Regulation, which states that applications for support should be processed in the order they are received (the so-called first-come, first-served principle), has posed significant challenges, given that the budget is limited to 100 million SEK.

The background to the introduction of production incentives in Sweden is that in 2017, after a declaration by the Swedish Parliament, supported by all parties, the government tasked Tillväxtverket with investigating the issue. The investigation “More Film Productions to Sweden” (2017) recommended that Sweden urgently introduce production incentives and that the state initially allocate 300 million SEK per year for this purpose. Tillväxtverket noted, among other things, that a too-low amount in the state budget could lead to the cap being reached “at the beginning of the year” and warned that the system would then risk becoming unpredictable.

With hindsight, we can state that the current budget of 100 million SEK has resulted in a significant over-subscription of the support at each application opportunity. The first-come, first-served principle has meant that speed in filling out the application form has been rewarded. The application period to receive support has shortened with each occasion. It is now clear that the funds in the latest announcement ran out after 1 minute and 7 seconds, with a margin of 327 milliseconds to the next applicant. We question the reasonableness of this and of an application procedure that appears to require extensive investments in IT consultants and technical aids to have a chance to receive funds.

The production incentive is now part of the film investigation that the government initiated at the beginning of the year. We believe that the first application rounds show that the application pressure is high and that the budget for the production incentive needs to be reviewed.

However, the film investigation will not be presented until February 28, 2025, which means that new film policy will not be in place until at the earliest 2026 or 2027. If no changes are made before then, the current application procedure will apply for another three to five application opportunities, which we do not find satisfactory.

Therefore, we appeal for the government to urgently enable a temporary solution that can apply until new film policy is in place. One possible solution is to complement the first-come, first-served principle with a simple weighting rule, which means that applications received on the same day are ranked based on certain predetermined criteria that serve the purpose of the incentive. We believe that Tillväxtverket, with its developed competence on the issue, is well suited to develop such a rule. We are happy to assist in this work.

Sincerely,

Eva Hamilton, chairman, Film&TV-Producenterna

Sandra Warg, CEO, Filmpool Nord

Mikael Fellenius, CEO, Film i Väst

Ralf Ivarsson, CEO, Film i Skåne

Kristina Colliander, CEO, Film Stockholm

Pia Grünler, chairperson, Sweden’s Film Distributors Association

Eva Beckman, program director, SVT

Fredrik Arefalk, channel and content director, TV4