08/04/2021 - The film agency has approved “Guarantee 2”, a support scheme aimed at helping film and series productions affected by the travel restrictions and unable to change or postpone their plans

Director of the Norwegian Film Institute Kjersti Mo

When the Norwegian borders had to be closed at the end of January owing to the increasing impact of the COVID-19 variants, the shutdown had significant repercussions on Norwegian audiovisual productions. The travel restrictions in place stopped actors and indispensable technical crew members coming from abroad from entering Norway. Currently, the situation is very precarious for several large Norwegian film and drama-series productions, which are therefore incurring significant extra costs, and risk being shut down and losing all of their investments.

In view of these conditions, the Norwegian Film Institute has approved a series of measures to help productions that have received funding in advance and are being affected by the restrictions. The set of said provisions is called “Garanti 2” (in English, “Guarantee 2”). In particular, the agency has set aside up to 20 million Norwegian crowns (approximately €1.985 million) to help productions to go about their work with reduced risks.

In terms of eligibility, the scheme can be of benefit to projects that have already received the institute's production grants and have incurred specific extra costs caused by the pandemic. Guarantee 2 is aimed at backing productions that have experienced complete or partial disruption caused by the government restrictions, and those projects that can no longer be changed or postponed.

Speaking about the scheme, the agency's director, Kjersti Mo, said: “We are doing our bit to ensure that the productions that have received advance funding from the NFI can be brought to fruition. There are strict requirements to qualify for this guarantee scheme, and productions able to change their plans must continue to do so. But with this scheme, we seek to avoid large losses and bankruptcies for the projects that are past the point where changes or further postponements are feasible.”

You can find out more about the scheme (in Norwegian) here.