European Film Distribution
CREA Project Grants
Basic Information
- Identifier
- CREA-MEDIA-2026-FILMDIST
- Programme
- European Film Distribution
- Programme Period
- 2021 - 2027
- Status
- Open (31094502)
- Opening Date
- December 4, 2025
- Deadline
- April 23, 2026
- Deadline Model
- single-stage
- Budget
- €34,000,000
- Min Grant Amount
- –
- Max Grant Amount
- –
- Expected Number of Grants
- –
- Keywords
- CREA-MEDIA-2026-FILMDISTCREA-MEDIA-2026-FILMDISTCreative EuropeDistribution - MediaDistribution automatic supportFilm distributionOnline distribution
Description
Expected results:
- Improvement in the trans-national distribution of recent non-national European films.
- Increase in the investment in the production, acquisition, promotion, theatrical and online distribution of non-national European films.
- Develop links between the production and distribution sector thus improving the competitive position of non-national European films.
There are two phases for the funded activities:
1. The generation of a potential fund which will be attributed according to the performance of the company on the European market.
2. The implementation of the action - the potential fund thus generated by each company must be reinvested in:
- the co-production of eligible non-national European films;
- the acquisition of distribution rights, for example by means of minimum guarantees, of eligible non-national European films;
- promotion, marketing and advertising on the market of eligible non-national European films both for theatrical and online releases.
Eligibility & Conditions
Conditions
1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout
described in the call document.
Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System.
2. Eligible Countries
described in the call document.
3. Other Eligible Conditions
described in the call document.
4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion
described in the call document.
5a. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes
described in the call document.
5b. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds
Evaluation criteria, scoring, threshold and process are described in the call document.
5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement
described in the call document.
Publication of the call: 4 December 2025.
Deadline for submitting applications: 23 April 2026 17:00 (Brussels time).
Evaluation period: May - September 2026.
Information to applicants: October 2026.
Signature of grant agreement: January 2027.
6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants
described in the call document.
Call document and annexes:
Application form templates
Standard application form (CREA MEDIA) — the application form specific to this call is available in the Submission System
Certified admissions (CREA MEDIA FILMDIST)
Information on independence and ownership control (CREA MEDIA)
Other mandatory annex to be attached to the proposal: PDF with information about film(s)/work(s) generated from the Creative Europe MEDIA Database
Model Grant Agreements (MGA)
Additional documents:
Frequently Asked Questions About European Film Distribution
Support & Resources
For help related to this call, please contact:
- your local Creative Europe desk, or
- the European Education and Culture Executive Agency
Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ – Submission of proposals.
IT Helpdesk – Contact the IT helpdesk for questions such as forgotten passwords, access rights and roles, technical aspects of submission of proposals, etc.
Online Manual – Step-by-step online guide through the Portal processes from proposal preparation and evaluation to reporting on your ongoing project. Valid for all 2021-2027 programmes.
Latest Updates
There will be an online information session on the call European Film Distribution 2026 on Tuesday, 10 March at 2:30 pm CET.
The session can be accessed here. Scroll down to Film Distribution. Slides will be published here after the presentation.
It will not be recorded.
The information session does not require registration and is open to all potential applicants!
Here is the updated 2026 list of national correspondents to certify admissions for the territory/ies declared in your MEDIA database admissions dossier. Please notice that the contact details of Estonia and Cyprus are pending for final confirmation.
Reminder: you should have your admissions certified and signed for each territory declared, using the ‘Certified admissions’ template
(also available on the call page and under “Download Part B template” when creating a draft proposal).
Please clearly indicate ‘Creative Europe MEDIA European Film Distribution 2026 call for proposals- Request for certification of admissions’ in your email/communication to the national authorities.
Once admissions have been certified, upload the document as a .pdf file in the draft Proposals area. Do not add a password protection, as this will be refused in the submission system.