OP Wins Funding for Development of International Counter-terrorism Drama Series
By Lauren Malyk
The Canada Media Fund (CMF), Film Fund Luxembourg (FFL) and South Africa’s National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) have invested more than $992,000 towards the codevelopment and production of projects with producers in Luxembourg, South Africa and Canada.
In total, the CMF has awarded over $500,000 towards eight collaborations with the two countries. The majority of the Canadian funder’s dollars went towards supporting five projects in partnership with Luxembourg, totalling a contribution of $443,474.
Canada’s Kaibou Production and Luxembour’s Bidibul Productions netted $480,000 for its three-part digital adventure project L’Adventure RV du Film Playmobil ($240,000 each from CMF and FFL).
Luxembourg’s Samsa Films also snapped up development coin for two of its projects: a dramatic webseries called Cult with Vancouver-based Omnifilm Entetrainment and Eureka, an environmental webseries with Toronto’s Six Island Productions. In total, Eureka received $100,000 and Cult received $99,996. Other projects selected to receive support include the doc webseries Ghost Dance from Montreal’s Urbania Media and Luxembourg’s a_BAHN ($34,000 from the CMF and $62,150 from FFL) and the mobile app and VR project, Crake Wacky Island, from Quebec’s Productions Squeeze and Luxembourg’s Zeilt Productions ($69,476 from CMF, $30,524 from FFL).
Meanwhile, the CMF and NFVF supported three drama series: The Rush from Canada’s Quiet Revolution and Johannesburg, South Africa-based Rous House Productions; OASIS I from Canada’s OP Development and Johannesburg, South Africa’s Blue Ice Africa; and finally, Queen of the Rain from Toronto’s Caribbean Tales and Randburg, South Africa’s Fuzebox Entertainment. Both The Rush and Queen of the Rain took home a total of $40,000 in development funding each. OASIS I earned $16,767 from the CMF and $20,000 from NFVF.