Since the forming of the Film Fund, that is involved exclusively in providing funding for film projects in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country’s film professionals have been insisting on a systematic solution for the whole country.
As politicians are hiding behind a very complicated government system, all the talks about a film centre that would take care of the funding, but also of the promotion and film policy in the whole country, have been in vain and filmmakers from Republika Srpska, the smaller region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, can’t even benefit from the Film Fund but have to rely on the good will of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Republika Srpska, that funded film with only 30,000 EUR in 2017.
"It was a great pleasure to welcome professionals from Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to talk about the strategies they used to build their film industries. I believe that their experiences can be turned into concrete steps and that very soon we will have representative, internationally recognised films by filmmakers from Banja Luka and that, together with colleagues from the whole country and the region, we will proudly represent filmmaking in Balkans,” Zoran Galić, producer at VizArt and organiser of the Film Forum, told FNE.
Boban Jevtić, director of Film Center Serbia, Sehad Ćekić, director of Film Centre of Montenegro and Jovan Marjanović, Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina at Eurimages, were among the guests of Film Forum Banja Luka along with representatives of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Republika Srpska.
Panels discussing alternative distribution, documentary films, production of first films and possibilities offered by Creative Europe also took place, alongside workshops organised for the students of the Faculty of Arts in Banja Luka.
Film Forum Banja Luka has been organised by VizArt and Creative Europe Desk of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the support of the Ministry of Education and Arts of Republika Srpska, the Ministry of Civil Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Creative Europe, the Association of Filmmakers of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the City of Banja Luka..
