Budget cuts pose threat to Bulgarian movies

Filmmakers demand resignation of culture minister over concerns that reduction in funds will wreck industry. Film producers, directors and makers have warned that new law changes proposed "behind their backs" could slash budgets for movies, which depend largely on state funding, and effectively kill off a burgeoning local film industry. At the moment, the law obliges the authorities to give the sector a minimum budget calculated according to the average budget of the previous year’s seven movies, 14 documentaries and 160 minutes of animation. Proposed changes will allow the government to lower this minimum sum, which in future will only be allocated "if possible". Budgets have already fallen this year. Until the current economic slowdown, state support for the industry had risen gradually, resulting in many successful film productions that have won a number of local and international awards.

But this year’s budget for the film industry was cut to 9.1 million lev [4.55 million euro], compared to 12 million [6 million euro] in 2009. "These changes will destroy the cinema industry,” Diana Andreeva, from the Sofia-based Observatory of Cultural Economics, told Balkan Insight. “In practice, there will be no minimum sum that the state is legally obliged to give for film, so they can easily give just give 100,000 lev [50,000 euro] if they want to," she added. "I don't expect any new Bulgarian movies to be produced in the next two years because the money will only be enough to finish films already in progress," Georgi Cholakov, chairman of the Association of Film Producers, told Balkan Insight.

Filmmakers say the proposed changes were coordinated with the ministry of culture, prompting demands for the resignation of the Culture Minister, Vezhdi Rashidov, and his deputy, Dimitar Dereliev. They say they plan to notify the European Commission of their concerns and take their protest to the streets. The ministry of culture dismissed the call for resignations, saying it knew nothing about the proposed changes to financing and did not take part in their discussion. In a statement, the ministry said that the filmmakers’ claims would only intentionally discredit the institution.

News source: BalkanInsight link: article