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Japan's Cultural Agency Updates Anime Film Subsidies

The Agency for Cultural Affairs of the Japanese government has revised how it allocates funds from the "cultural promotion subsidy" for theatrical (live-action) films, documentaries, and animated films in 2008. The funds are intended to raise the level of motion picture arts in Japan. For animated films, feature-length works that are at least one hour long can apply. To ensure that both independent projects and large-scale studio works have access to the funds, three levels of funding are provided.

For a "Special Class" film project with a budget of 200 million yen (about US$1.9 million) or higher, up to 50 million yen (US$470,000) is available. For an "A Class" film project with a budget between 80 million yen (US$750,000) and 50 million yen, up to 20 million yen (US$190,000) is available. For an "B Class" film project with a budget between 10 million yen (US$93,000) and 80 million yen, up to 3 million yen (US$28,000) is available. In all cases, the subsidy can be 25% to 30% of the film's budget, which is a change from last year's subsidy rules.

The deadline for the first round of applications ended on January 11, but the second round will run from July 14 to July 18. The selected films must be screened between the Japanese fiscal year of April 1, 2008 and March 31, 2009.

Source: animeanime.jp