Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Studios support the resumption of the European TV, film and theater community by announcing a $ 6 million commitment to the Covid-19 emergency funds set up in Europe to support audiovisual productions.
The first confirmed award from the fund is an overall £1.5m ($ 2 million) to support the UK creative community through donations to the Film & TV Charity’s Covid-19 Response and the Theater Community Fund. Since the start of the crisis, Film & TV Charity has distributed over £ 3.3 million in financial support and launched a range of mental wellbeing services to support UK film industry and professionals; The Theater Community Fund, launched by Fleabag stars Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Olivia Colman and producer Francesca Moody, has a long list of notable founding donors and offers fellowships to freelancers and creation grants to artists.
“The creative community in Europe has been vital to our success in producing high-quality Amazon Original TV series and movies for our global audience, and it is essential for us to help that community through this pandemic,” said Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke.
Amazon Studios has made more than 20 original series across Europe since 2016, including The Grand Tour, Fleabag, All or Nothing: Manchester City, James May: Our Man in Japan and Good Omens in the UK; Beat (Germany), Love Island France, Celebrity Hunted: Caccia all’uomo (Italy) and El Corazón de Sergio Ramos (Spain).
Future productions include The Power (UK), based on Naomi Alderman’s book of the same name; La Templanza and El Cid (Spain); Deutschland 89 and We Children of the Bahnhof zoo (Germany); Bang Bang Baby (Italy); and Voltaire, Mixte (France).
Amazon Studios has also signed general deals to create new television content with British creators including Waller-Bridge, Neil Gaiman (Good Omens) and Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave), and this Halloween will launch the first four “unsettling” genre movies it has produced with Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Television under the label Welcome to the Blumhouse.
