Eligibility: NZ Nationals

Screen Australia and the New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC) have extended the ‘accord’ concerning New Zealand and Australian nationals working on treaty co-productions to 30 June 2012.

This means that Australian nationals will continue to be treated as New Zealand nationals and vice versa for all official New Zealand or Australian film and television co-productions. For example, an Australian director can be regarded as a New Zealand national for the purposes of an UK/New Zealand official co-production. A New Zealand DOP can be regarded as an Australian national in regard to a Canadian/Australian official co-production.

As is currently the case, the funding bodies of each country will continue to apply their own criteria in deciding whether to fund an official co-production. For example, in New Zealand the NZFC is the competent authority responsible for co-production certification and is also the key financier of feature films requiring cultural funding. Cultural funds are those specifically tagged to develop and produce projects for national identity purposes.

Under the arrangement the NZFC will in the first instance (as the competent authority) assess whether projects qualify as official co-productions using the ‘Australasian’ key personnel criteria, and then (in its capacity as funding body) consider applications for cultural funding using the more restrictive existing nationality criteria.

The Screen Australia-NZFC accord only affects co-production certification assessment practices and has no impact on existing script development policies of the NZFC, Screen Australia or other government agencies.

Any queries about this arrangement may be directed to
coproductions@screenaustralia.gov.au