Today (June 5) is the deadline for submission of projects for the 10 tenders announced a month ago Ministry of Culture.
No film or art.
One of those ten is the Competition for financing or co-financing projects in the field of film art, "which contribute to the achievement of general interest in the field of culture defined by Article 6 of the Law on Culture."
The priorities of the competition are listed: film events, awards, colonies, markets, promotion of the film through digital technologies, programs that popularize the film...
Film, film production, is not among the priorities of this Film Competition.
Since the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Culture has announced a total of 27 competitions until May 5, if we include competition for Expo, Cities in focus, foreign cultural centers and the development of the culture of the Republic of Srpska.
Among them is not a competition for fine arts.
One would think that Serbia is gradually but surely shutting down its cinematography, considering that even the Film Center of Serbia has not announced competitions for contemporary filmmaking, as well as visual creativity, for two years now.
There is an Expo.
However, there is a contest for cultural programs during the Expo!
Namely, the Expo invited artists and creators of the entire cultural scene to apply for the contest for Expo culture projects, which runs from May 29 to July 10. The conditions of the competition state that proposals can be from different artistic fields: music, film and audio-visual creativity, theater, literature, artistic play, street art, visual arts, digital creativity, architecture, performance, as well as the cultural heritage of Serbia.
For individual projects, funding from at least 500.000 to a maximum of 8.000.000 dinars per project is provided.
It is possible to get much, much less money at the contests of the Ministry of Culture.
What does this mean: that the state does not have money for cultural projects, but it has money for Expo culture, and that it tells artists and creators that whoever wants to work and survive should apply at the Expo competition.
Representative art associations, as well as the Independent Cultural Scene of Serbia, refused to participate.
Nowhere does it say when the results of the Ministry of Culture competition will be known, nor who are the members of the commissions that will decide on the candidates. Given that the results for 14 of last year's 29 competitions of the Ministry of Culture have not yet been announced, perhaps we should not expect that this year will be any different.
Because there is the Expo, which this year will be what the state is not.
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