CULTURAL POLICY

When is a Film »Croatian?«

When film works (as well as video and the moving image of a computer-program) are in question, ownership is entirely »intellectual,« i. e., based on spiritual creativity, rather than on its other »embodiments« that can be considered after the »intellectual.« It is a question of copyright and whoever owns the copyright, owns the right to claim the film a national commodity. However, this ownership need not be singular nor exclusive: just like a number of co-owners of a film can have the copyright and use it as they please, so too can a number of nationalities/countries consider the given intellectual product and its »embodiments« its common good. National affiliation is not an exclusive category.

In this regard, the nation/country can — noncommercially — use those works created within its framework or in coproduction for common cultural or promotional purposes independent of the copyright only if the authors of the work are eventually paid for the use of the work. The common cultural interest of the nation has precedence over the copyright when those interest are not commercial in nature.

Nevertheless, however indicative the copyright may be in proving the national affiliation of the work in question, it does not have to be the deciding factor in establishing the work’s cultural affiliation, nor does the exclusivity of the copyright have to be an indication of the exclusive affiliation of the work to a certain culture: in spite of a foreign copyright, a foreign film by a Croatian filmmaker can be considered a part of the fellowship of Croatian culture.

Hrvoje Turković