The DigiDemo and CreaDemo grants awarded by AVEK to the creative industries will be cut by half in 2021. Distributed for almost 20 years, these grants are funded from a special appropriation granted by the Ministry of Education and Culture that comes from profits obtained from gaming operations. AVEK’s product development support has helped companies and products such as Supercell, Gigglebug Entertainment, Arilyn and Oikiat Design’s Vaatelaastari (FabPatch) get started. The drastic decrease in the amount of financial support is a new blow to the creative industries and threatens their reform and innovation.

“The beginning of new stories is in jeopardy,” writes Director of AVEK Ulla Simonen in her blog. The DigiDemo and CreaDemo grants distributed by AVEK will be cut by half in 2021, and the future of the appropriation is unknown.

At the documentary industry’s DocInfo event held on 17 January 2020, we presented some of the changes being made to the types of financial support granted by AVEK. Here is a concise information package about what will change this year and what kind of new developments you can look forward to!

AVEK has continuous application periods apart from the Mediarata and the CreaDemo and DigiDemo grants. In addition, in some supports the decisions are only made on certain days.

AVEK has appointed a new media art commissioner. Milla Moilanen, who has been working in the field of moving pictures for over 30 years, assumed her new position on 3 February 2020.

AVEK distributed EUR 3.7 million in grants in 2019. During the year, 971 applications were processed, 439 of which received the grant. In the autumn of 2019, the decision-making process already took into account the principles of sustainable development, and this year the responsibility of the productions is also promoted through its own form of support.