CULTURAL POLICY

Is there a Chance for a Non-Commercial network?

On Friday 14tha May 2004 at 11 o’clock in art-cinema of Cultural Informational Centre in Zagreb, there was a consultation with working title Program / communal cinemas in transition and market competition — between film heritage and multiplex. The consultation was organized with the support of the Ministry of culture of the Republic of Croatia and Goethe Institute in Zagreb. Among the invited participants were supervisors of small cinemas and centres that shoe films of special values, representatives of Babylon cinema from Berlin (a member of the network of ’communal cinema’) and Goethe Institute in Zagreb, representatives from Ministry of culture and cultural workers associated with showing of such films. A motive for such a consultation was a chaotic and completely erratic situation in Croatian film screening, particularly in noncommercial-distributive, film-cultural and educational segment. Cinemas across the country are closing their doors, as well as some cultural centres and university extensions that had film-educational role in smaller communities, and Croatian Film Archive does not have its own cinema, although it helps the programs of other centres according to its abilities. As the discussion showed, those centres, extensions and cinemas with special programs that are functioning at the moment, face serious problems concerning procurement of programs, continuous co-financing, old equipment, difficult working conditions and old technology. All this is connected with lack of understanding on the part of administrators of regional and state cultural policy for those programs, and lack of vision of development. In the conclusion of the debate, it was agreed upon the coordination of organizations with the aim of better cooperation and flow of information about the programs, but also of common focused actions towards political factors that can help founding a network of non-commercial cinemas like communal cinema in Germany, according to what guests from Berlin said about the organization.

Tomislav Jagec