If you are choosing a production company in Austria, you will come across four letters: CAFP. Here is what they mean, who gets the certificate, what it stands for — and why a producer with awards has one anyway.
Certified Austrian Film Producer is a quality mark awarded by the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber through the Trade Association for the Film and Music Industry. It has existed since 2014.
It exists for a specific reason. In Austria, film producer is an unregulated trade: since 1994 anyone may register as one. There is no exam, no licence, no minimum experience. The chamber introduced CAFP so that clients would have something objective to orient themselves by in a market where the job title alone tells you nothing.
The requirements are published and they are not negotiable in the ordinary case.
Where the paperwork does not settle it, the association can require an expert interview, in which the applicant has to demonstrate particular suitability. Evidence can also be furnished through completed films, credits and references.
Exceptions to some of the requirements are possible in cases that warrant it — but there is no legal entitlement to the certificate. It can be refused.
Certified companies are entered in a public register and are permitted to use the mark in business dealings.
On the commercial and legal side. Five years of practice and a trade licence are common enough — the documented knowledge of business, law or film studies is where it usually turns.
That is deliberate. What gets checked is whether the person handling your money knows what they are doing with it.
Two clarifications that belong to an honest account.
It examines the commercial side. Commercial, legal and organisational competence is documented. Taste is left to awards and festivals, where it belongs.
It comes from the advertising and corporate film sector — commercials, image films, training films. That is the market it was built to bring order to, and that is where it carries weight.
So why does it appear on this page at all?
This is the question we get asked, and it is a fair one. Wolfgang Ritzberger has the Austrian Film Award as producer of Best Feature Film, the Romy producer’s award for Best Film, and the Diagonale award for innovative production work. Why go through a chamber certification on top of that?
Because they answer different questions.
An award says a jury of your peers thought a particular film was good. It is retrospective, it is about one project, and it says nothing about whether the accounts were in order.
The certificate says something duller and, for a client, more useful: five years in the chair, a trade licence, documented commercial and legal knowledge, transparent pricing. Somebody checked. In a market where anyone may call themselves a film producer, that is the only claim on the whole page that a stranger can verify without knowing anything about film.
And in service production, the dull half is the job. An international production arriving in Austria does not need a local producer with a vision. It needs someone who knows the collective agreements, who can present the same budget three different ways for three different authorities, who understands where Austrian copyright law differs from the one at home, and who prices transparently enough that the figures survive an audit.
The awards tell you the films were worth making. The certificate tells you the production office worked.
Trust the register rather than a logo — including this one. The chamber maintains a public list of certified companies. A look there takes a minute and settles the question.
Wolfgang Ritzberger holds the certificate.
The second credential worth checking on any Austrian service producer is the green one — without a certified green filming consultant or a green certified company, the five per cent green bonus is not available to your project at all. That is on our Green Filming page.
Requirements as published by the trade association. They are revised from time to time — please check the current version before relying on this summary.