Over the year 2008 local Film Institutions had been introduced as one of the most successful means of government film funding. The Polish Filmmakers Association (www.sfp.org.pl) notes that, until recently, the Westpomeranian region (www.um-zachodniopomorskie.pl) had two important cinema centers in Szczecin and Koszalin. The first city hosts the headquarters of most Polish film companies and has organized the European Documentary Film Festival documentART since 1992. Koszalin promotes the new Polish cinema with its film debut festival, Youth and Film. While the distribution side of the Westpomeranin film industry is in a positive position, the production branch needed suppoting, the main reason the region's Marshal, Władysław Husejko, decided to introduce local film funding.

The Westpomeranian Film Fund will disperse PLN 800000 (230,000 euros). "The Fund will support the local productions, that will have a preferance to the public funds. But it does not come down to financing movies alone: it is also help in their production, promotion, entering films in festivals, local cinemas digitalization," vice Marshal, Witold Jablonski told Stopklatka (www.stopklatka.pl). The Polish website also reports that the project corrdinator Bartosz Wojcik will focus on creating a stable system for the film creation and building a cinema oriented environment, for which a local film institution seems to be the most suitable tool.

Sponsored Statement