Empowering the minority co-producer through European financial co-productions: The case of DFI International

Abstract

The article introduces the notion of the European financial co-production, characterized by the mandatory cultural value of the script and empowerment of the minority co-producer through risk-sharing in financing. Eurimages, the Council of Europe’s film fund, inaugurated the first policies promoting European financial co-productions more than two decades ago by introducing the European Convention on Cinematographic Co-production. Many European film funds have followed the same policies on the national level, but the Danish Film Institute has been by far the most innovative. This article explores in more detail the DFI’s internationalization policy actions, particularly its minority co-production scheme, which democratized the practice of European co-production that traditionally had been the sole purview of a narrow circle of high-profile European producers. The shift enabled young Danish producers to engage in minority co-productions, popularizing co-production as a model among Danish producers of all calibres and triggering a dynamic knowledge transfer between co-producers.