Australian Film Finance Corporation Limited

The Film Finance Corporation was established in May 1988 by the Australian Government under prime minister Bob Hawke, with the organisation beginning operations in the following financial year. Its inaugural chairman was Kim Williams. The FFC emerged as an alternative source of support for the film industry to the then existent Australian Film Commission (AFC) and the 10BA tax concession. It centralised government support for the Australian film industry, becoming the main source of film and television funding in the years immediately after its inception. The role of the AFC was diverted to focus on personnel and script development for culturally significant productions. Instead, the FFC was conceived as a 'film bank' with then treasurer Paul Keating acknowledging the notion that the organisation might become self-funding. The guiding principles for what the FFC decided to fund was driven by the market in that projects required financial commitments from distributors or sales agents to secure funding. Thus, projects were largely dictated by the market.

Financing by the FFC

Between 2004 and June 2007, the FFC streamlined its financing policies by implementing their “two-door” system for Australian producers seeking funding. The first “door” referred to projects that had already secured financing from non-government or private sources above one-quarter of their budget were eligible for automatic funding provided by the FFC of up 45% of their budget. Such projects were termed “Marketplace” films. The second “door” referred to as “Evaluation” films required a commitment from the market, either financial or nonfinancial, such as a commitment by a theatrical distributor to release the film, and also required passing an evaluation by an internal committee. Such films were provided possibly larger funding by the FFC. Although there was little difference between the box office performances of “Marketplace” and “Evaluation” films, “Evaluation” films tend to screen at significant global film festivals.

Federal Government Support

From 1988 to 1994, a total of A$337.7 million of federal government support was provided to productions through the FFC. By then, the FFC's recoups on the invests were 36% for films, 35% for television drama, 25% for co-productions and 6.5-10% for documentaries.

The international success of Strictly Ballroom was responsible for driving the revenue of the FFC from A$8.05 million in the 1989/90 financial year to $18.3 million in the 1992/93. Although the FFC had not fulfilled a “promise” to be self-funding within three years of its inception, Paul Keating used it as an example in his campaign to maintain the status quo for government financing.