Creative Europe MEDIA Mini-Slate Development: 2026 Call Archive

The 2026 European mini-slate development call is closed. Its official identifier was CREA-MEDIA-2026-DEVMINISLATE; the submission deadline was 17 September 2026 at 17:00 Brussels time. The Funding & Tenders Portal submission system closed after that deadline. This is a historical reference for producers who need to understand the previous call, not an application window that is accepting proposals.

The 2027 work programme has been announced, but there is no new mini-slate application date or call fiche to use here. The European Commission’s Culture and Creativity update of 22 September 2026 says MEDIA support for cross-border audiovisual development will continue through calls including slate and mini-slate. EACEA’s notice of 30 September 2026 says the first 2027 Creative Europe calls had been published and directs applicants to the Funding & Tenders Portal for upcoming calls, criteria, and deadlines. Those programme-level notices do not identify a 2027 mini-slate call or provide its identifier, opening date, deadline, budget, eligibility rules, or application documents. They confirm that this type of support is planned to continue, not that a mini-slate application window is open. Do not carry the 2026 deadline or its rules forward as if they were the next call’s terms.

What this archive covers

The call was managed by the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) for the MEDIA strand of Creative Europe. Its purpose was to help independent production companies in countries with low audiovisual capacity strengthen their position and develop audiovisual works with the potential to circulate across Europe and internationally. It was a development grant for a small portfolio, rather than a general film-production fund or an open grant for companies across all European markets.

The 2026 call had an estimated budget of €7 million. Applicants could request between €60,000 and €310,000 per project. The requested amount was not guaranteed: the award could be lower, and the call reserved the right not to allocate its full budget. Grants were lump sums with prefixed amounts by category. In the call fiche these were €55,000 for a one-off animation, €60,000 for an animation series, €30,000 for a one-off creative documentary, €35,000 for a creative documentary series, €45,000 or €60,000 for a one-off fiction project depending on its production budget, and €55,000, €75,000, or €100,000 for fiction series depending on production budget. An optional short film had a €10,000 lump sum. The categories, conditions, and amounts here describe the 2026 call only; the 2027 call documents may set different terms.

Who could apply in the 2026 call

The applicant had to be an independent European audiovisual production company, established in a country participating fully in the MEDIA strand and classified as a low audiovisual capacity country in group A or group B. The company had to be wholly or majority owned, directly or indirectly, by nationals of those countries. For publicly listed companies, the call fiche said the location of the stock exchange would in principle determine nationality. The eligible groups listed in the 2026 fiche were:

Group A: Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Poland, Portugal, and Romania.
Group B: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
The fiche also listed Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine within group B, subject to the conditions for their participation in the call.

These country names are a record of the 2026 call fiche, not a substitute for checking the participating-country and association conditions attached to a future call. The applicant also had to be independent of audiovisual media service providers. Under the 2026 call’s definition, a single service provider holding more than 25% of the production company’s share capital, or several such providers together holding more than 50%, counted as majority control.

The 2026 applicant needed to demonstrate recent experience producing an internationally distributed work. The qualifying earlier work had to be an animation, fiction, or creative documentary released since 2019, with a total duration of at least 24 minutes, except that immersive works had no minimum duration. It had to reach cinemas, television, or digital platforms in at least three countries other than the applicant’s country before that call’s deadline. The releases had to be commercial; festival screenings alone did not count. The applicant had to show it was the sole producer, the major co-producer or delegate producer, or that its chief executive or a shareholder had an on-screen producer or delegate-producer credit. The fiche warned that if the named work failed these tests, the proposal was ineligible even if another past work might have qualified.

The 2026 call accepted single applicants, with affiliated entities allowed if needed. Applicants could not submit more than one proposal to the mini-slate call. A company that had received a grant under the 2025 slate or mini-slate call was excluded from applying in this round. The call also limited applicants to one coordinator application across the four specified 2026 MEDIA development calls: co-development, slate, mini-slate, and video games and immersive content. These are prior-cycle rules; check the future call fiche before relying on them.

What the 2026 mini-slate supported

An application had to present two or three works, with an optional short film for emerging talent. The core slate could include fiction, animation, and creative documentary intended for commercial exploitation through cinema, television, digital platforms, or a multiplatform environment. The call set format-specific minimum lengths: cinema features, animation, and creative documentaries had to be at least 60 minutes; television or digital fiction had to total at least 90 minutes; television or digital animation at least 24 minutes; and television or digital creative documentary at least 50 minutes. Interactive and immersive fiction, animation, or creative documentary could be any duration.

If projects were designed as a series with a joint distribution and marketing strategy, applicants had to submit them as a series. Individual episodes could not be split into separate works to fill the slate. The first day of principal photography, or the start of animation, had to be scheduled at least ten months after the application deadline. The optional short film could be no longer than 20 minutes and had to support an emerging director. The fiche excluded, among other categories, promotional and institutional works, music videos, video games, e-books, student films, and graduation films from both the development slate and short-film activities.

The call sought projects with creative value and cultural diversity, alongside credible European and international circulation prospects. It encouraged companies to plan marketing and distribution early and to build co-production relationships across participating countries with different audiovisual capacities. The application had to address environmental sustainability, gender balance, inclusion, diversity, and representativeness. In the scoring system, relevance was worth 35 points, quality of content and activities 30, project management 20, and dissemination 15. There were no individual criterion thresholds; the overall threshold was 70 points out of 100. A threshold is not a promise of funding: final selection was limited by the available budget and the evaluation results.

Application materials and process used in 2026

The 2026 call required online submission through the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System. Paper proposals were not accepted, and the application had to use the forms provided inside the portal. The 2026 submission consisted of:

Part A, entered online, with participant and administrative information and a summary budget.
Part B, the technical description, completed using the template downloaded from the submission system and uploaded as a PDF.
Part C, additional project data and contribution to programme key performance indicators, entered online.
Annexes, including the mandatory lump-sum calculator, a PDF dossier generated through the Creative Europe MEDIA Database, a creative dossier for each proposed work, proof of rights ownership and adaptation rights where relevant, and mandatory declarations on independence and European ownership and on the language of submitted materials.
Supporting co-production, distribution, and financing evidence where available, such as contracts, deal memos, signed letters of commitment, or letters of intent.

Part B could not exceed 70 pages; the fiche said excess pages would not be considered. Participants needed EU Login accounts and organisation registration in the Participant Register, which generated a participant identification code. The portal’s topic page linked to the electronic submission system. A proposal was not complete merely because its files had been uploaded: the applicant needed to submit it and receive the portal’s confirmation email. The fiche recommended using the online manual and call-specific portal material for the submission mechanics.

For development planning, the 2026 application needed to connect the creative work to a credible development and market path. The call’s required materials and scored criteria point applicants toward a clear presentation of each work’s concept and creative potential, the team’s experience, the development schedule and budget, financing assumptions, distribution partners and target territories, and an audience strategy. A slate should make clear why its works belong together in the company’s development portfolio while giving each project a distinct creative and commercial rationale. Sustainability and inclusion commitments should be concrete, connected to the production and creative choices, and proportionate to the actual projects.

Rights readiness and the past-work evidence were practical gate checks, not items to postpone until the final assembly. Applicants needed contracts or proof of ownership for the submitted projects and, where relevant, adaptation rights. They also needed evidence supporting the required credit and commercial release history for the qualifying past work. For a future round, do not assume the 2026 dossier template or definitions will remain unchanged: retrieve the active call fiche and templates from the live Funding & Tenders topic page first.

What is known about the 2027 cycle

The official programme update published on 22 September 2026 says cross-border development and production support will continue in 2027 through calls including co-development, slate, mini-slate, television and online content, and video games and immersive content. EACEA’s 30 September 2026 announcement confirms that the first 2027 calls had been published, while directing applicants to the Portal for upcoming calls, criteria, and deadlines. The specific mini-slate call notice and its application documents are not supplied in those two announcements. Applicants therefore should not treat a confirmed deadline, eligibility list, grant range, or application form for mini-slate as established by them.

The programme update directs potential applicants to EACEA, the CulturEU Funding Guide, and Creatives Unite for funding information. For an application, the authoritative next step is to locate the new topic in the European Commission’s Funding & Tenders Portal and read the corresponding call fiche and live topic page. Those materials establish the final eligibility, documents, calendar, submission route, and any changes in award criteria. A general commitment that a call family will continue is useful for planning, but it is not an open call and cannot be used to submit a proposal.

Official references

2026 European mini-slate development call fiche (CREA-MEDIA-2026-DEVMINISLATE) — source for the archived 2026 budget, deadline, eligibility, activity scope, submission process, and evaluation terms.
Creative Europe in 2027: one last year before the new budget cycle — European Commission programme update published 22 September 2026; it confirms continued 2027 MEDIA support through slate and mini-slate calls but does not state a mini-slate application date.
Launch of the 2027 Creative Europe work programme and calls — EACEA announcement of 30 September 2026 that the first calls were published, with a reminder to check the Portal for upcoming calls and their terms.
European Education and Culture Executive Agency: Creative Europe — programme information from the agency managing the archived call.

Check the live Funding & Tenders Portal for the 2027 mini-slate topic and its current documents before preparing or submitting an application. Until those call-specific details are published, treat the information above on eligibility, amount, and application steps as a record of the closed 2026 round.