Photo: TanjugThe Film Center of Serbia has not been able to operate for almost four months because it does not have a Board of Directors. A new one cannot be elected, because Jelena Trivan will not leave the post of president. Because of all this, the movies are waiting
The Film Center of Serbia (FCS) informed "all interested parties" on its website yesterday, Friday, that it "cancels" the announcement of three public tenders for financing and co-financing projects in the cinematography, and that it is "postponing" three more. It was stated that the reasons are procedural, and in order to obtain appropriate documentation from the FCS.
Those procedural reasons would not exist if FCS had a Board of Directors.
The Board of Directors is the body without which FCS cannot function. He cannot make decisions, determine the annual budget and current resources, plan. In practice, it cannot work.
Competitions for financing and co-financing of films are one of the trademarks of FCS. Last year, 29 were announced, and it is planned that there will be at least the same number this year.
But, on November 25 of last year, the Board of Directors caused a scandal by its decision to cancel the invitational contest for eminent directors without explanation, which, apart from the extremely violent reactions of the cultural public and the court action of the injured directors Goran Marković, Želimir Žilnik and Srđan Dragojević, also caused the resignation of members of the Board of Directors. That's right, they after the resignations of Aleksandar Erdeljanović and Sandra Perović, Miroljub Stojanović, Anđelija Andrić and after the death of the actor Vladan Živković, only three members remained in the Board of Directors of FCS, which is insufficient for making any decisions.
Since then, FCS has been without a Board of Directors.
In practice, this means that FCS does not have a decision on the budget for this year, which is a basic prerequisite for it to function and do business, and therefore no possibility to announce tenders that help the realization of films. The end result of this situation, at least judging by the current state of affairs, is that there will be little shooting this year: films that would have a chance to start shooting thanks to FCS money will not start shooting, films whose shooting is in progress may not. stopped because they won't get other funds to continue, and the same reason will stop films that are about to be post-produced.
It has been announced since the beginning of this crisis that this mess will end, that is, that the Ministry of Culture and Information will choose people to fill the vacant positions in the FCS Board of Directors. But it doesn't work.
By law, two members of the Board of Directors should be from FCS. However, no one the Ministry of Culture negotiated with wanted to accept the offer. Unofficially, it is known that they refused because of Jelena Trivan, the president of the Board of Directors, who does not like democracy.
Another reason why the Ministry did not choose a new Management Board is because - it cannot.
Jelena Trivan, director Miroslav Lekić and editor Petar Jakonić, who are still on the Board of Directors, do not want to resign but are waiting for their mandate to end. The Ministry can only elect a new Management Board when the mandate of the old one has expired. Why the Ministry did not take advantage of the opportunity it has and dissolve the Management Board is of course unknown and of course the unofficial stories related to that topic refer to the April parliamentary elections.
Their mandate expires in the second half of April. Given that the Steering Committee must be verified by the Government, and considering that it will take some time until a new Government is formed after the April elections, and some more time until the new Ministry of Culture proposes a new Steering Committee for a vote, and then until the summer vacations pass, FCS expects that normal functioning will be enabled only at the beginning of autumn.
In order for the films to suffer as little as possible, FCS recently found a way to start announcing tenders for financing and co-financing: the responsibility for that part of the work was transferred to the Ministry - procedural reasons and the acquisition of FCS documentation mentioned at the beginning of this refer to this. text.
Gordan Matić, director of FCS, tells "Vreme" that their lawyers have managed to "find a way to announce tenders even without the signature of the Management Board", that there will be as many as last year, and that "the decree of the Ministry which is waiting, arrive at the beginning of the week. As soon as the paperwork is resolved, tenders will be announced."
On the occasion of the Ministry of Culture and the Board of Directors of FCS, just one more detail, unrelated to competitions and future films: Goran Marković, Želimir Žilnik and Srđan Dragojević, whose films were rejected by the Board of Directors in the competition for eminent directors, complained to the Ministry. The Ministry could not make a decision because there is no Steering Committee where it could check the credibility of their arguments.
"It is not clear why the Steering Committee was important to the Ministry in our case, and now, due to new competitions, it has found a way to bypass it," he told "Vreme". Srdjan Dragojevic. "If they hadn't rejected us, we wouldn't have initiated the process at the Administrative Court." Those processes last two years. We know what that means for our films."
In short, if the remaining three members of the Board of Directors had resigned, none of this would have happened.
S.Ć.
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