The Norwegian Film Institute (NFI) will accept no new applications to 16 of its artistically assessed development and production schemes from midday on Tuesday 15 December until 1 March 2027, an 11-week closure that spans feature films, drama series, documentaries and shorts. In a notice first published on 19 October and updated on 4 November, the institute says it needs the time to rebuild its application portal and case-handling system.
The decision is now drawing fire from the industry. Norske filmregissører, the Norwegian film directors’ association, has warned of significant knock-on effects, and Virke, the employers’ federation whose producers’ association represents about 170 independent production companies, argues that the cost of the changeover will in practice land on producers, according to a 9 November report by the Oslo trade site Rushprint. Rushprint says NFI has apologised and answered the criticism; FilmBunch has seen only the summary of that subscriber article.
For producers the arithmetic is simple: a project that misses the noon deadline on 15 December cannot apply to these schemes again until 2 March.
Key facts
- Closed from 12:00 on 15 December 2026 to 1 March 2027 inclusive; reopening at 12:00 on 2 March 2027.
- FilmBunch-established: the notice lists 16 schemes, ten for development and six for production, and the closure runs for 77 days.
- Complete applications received before the cut-off will be decided before reopening; decisions and payments continue throughout.
- Not affected: frame grants (rammetilskudd), games development and every scheme not on the list.
- The rebuild is part of a digitalisation project that has received NOK15.2m ($1.61m) from the co-financing scheme of Norway’s Digitalisation Agency.
What closes
On the development side, the list runs from early idea work (idefordypning) and script development to full development support, plus two strands of NFI’s Neo scheme. On the production side, it covers support after artistic assessment plus Neo production. Both take in feature films, drama series, documentaries, documentary series and shorts. Every other NFI scheme stays open.
“We have to close for new applications in the schemes affected by the changes to the application portal,” Sofie Hove Stene, NFI’s director of finance and governance, said in the notice. “We know this creates challenges for applicants, and we apologise for the inconvenience.”
Why the institute is doing it
NFI says the new workflows lay the groundwork for tools it will roll out through 2027, such as reusing information from earlier applications. The rebuild would also accommodate a simpler development system: a proposal to merge those schemes into one fiction track and one documentary track is out for consultation until 30 November.
The timing compounds a slow season. NFI handles no cases in weeks 52 and 53, and cannot make awards or payments from its 2027 budget until the Ministry of Culture and Equality issues its allocation letter, normally in January or early February. Producers who want instalments paid before the new year must file payment requests by Wednesday 25 November, according to a separate notice.
Rolling decisions from 2027
When the schemes reopen on 2 March, applications will be handled on a rolling basis rather than in rounds. For feature-film production support after artistic assessment, that switch takes effect on 1 January 2027, as the institute announced in August.
It follows two rulings by the media appeals board, Medieklagenemnda, in November and December 2025, which established that a rejected applicant can request a fresh assessment of the same application without waiting for the next round. NFI said that could sharply increase its workload during rounds. Rolling-deadline schemes outside the pause reopen at 12:00 on 1 January, and next year’s other deadlines will be published before Christmas.
Our reading
For Norwegian producers and the foreign partners who co-produce with them, the calendar is now fixed: file by noon on 15 December or plan for March. The closure stops intake, not money, because decisions and payments continue, so the delay falls on projects that were aiming for a winter decision. NFI has not said how many applications it usually receives in those weeks. Elsewhere, public funds are still deciding rounds this autumn, from Germany’s MOIN to Spain’s ICAA; more is in Money & Policy.
The NOK figure is converted at the European Central Bank reference rates for 6 November 2026 (€1 = NOK10.5260 = $1.1165).
Sources
- Norsk filminstitutt, notice on the temporary closure of artistically assessed schemes (published 19 October 2026, updated 4 November 2026, Norwegian)
- Norsk filminstitutt, payment deadlines before Christmas (4 November 2026, Norwegian)
- Norsk filminstitutt, changes to case-handling practice (14 August 2026, Norwegian)
- Norsk filminstitutt, application deadlines page
- Rushprint, reactions to the NFI closure (9 November 2026, Norwegian, subscriber article; summary only)
- European Central Bank, euro reference rates, 6 November 2026