Karlovy Vary – and EU Budget Cuts
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival started a couple of days ago and the documentary has a good position with an international competititon and a panorama. In the latter section you find ”Stories We Tell” by Sara Polley, ”Father’s Garden – The Love of My Parents” (photo) by Peter Liechti and ”The Expedition to the End of the World” by Danish Daniel Dencik, who also has his bicycle film ”Moon Rider” in the Czech festival, in the competition category. Here you also find Wiktoria Szymanska’s ”The Man who Made Angels Fly”.
During the festival there is of course a so-called industry section and alarming news came out of a meeeting with the EU Parliament member Silvia Costa. According to an article in FilmNewEurope (link below, written by Cathy Mells, there are ” proposed draconian cuts to the cultural budget. “Culture and creativity are really very endangered,” she said.”
“The MEDIA Programme will come under the umbrella of the seven year Creative Europe (starting from 2014, ed.), which Costa said will make it more connected with other aspects of the programme”, but as the overall budget for all programmes will face cuts of only 4%, the European Commission has suggested a cut from 1,8b € to 1,3b€. Costa said at the meeting that she will fight for (she is “rapporteur” for the Creative Europe (what a stupid name, by the way/ed.)) a 1,5b€ budget that would be closer to a 15% cut.
Costa reassured that the much talked about “cultural exception” in the EU will continue – film professionals had argued that the Americans would take over the European film industry if this exception was not kept.
About Creative Europe it was mentioned that “Creative Europe will see more support for non-profit activities, and will be more open to the inclusion of non-member countries and potential EU candidates such as Serbia, along with an emphasis on transnational projects and activities that connect the private and public sectors. Goals of the programme include greater movement of workers and works of art, strengthening cooperation, supporting film coproductions and distribution in cinemas, dubbing and subtitling of films, audience building (through film education), digitalisation, new models of distribution of a transnational nature, and marketing activities through presence on international markets and innovative sales strategies.”
http://www.filmneweurope.com/news/czech/105804-creative-europe-fights-eu-budget-cuts/menu-id-150
