While commercial Slovak television, led by CME's Markiza TV, has seen a dramatic downturn in advertising revenues due to the global economic crisis, the Slovak film industry has so far been unaffected.

Subsidies from Audiovisual programme at the Ministry of Culture were comparable to 2008 (4.3 million Euro in 2008 and 4.2 million Euro in 2008). Banks have been  cautious in extending credit generally. Zuzana Mistrikova, executive vice-president of the Slovak Film Academy told FNE, "Except for Bathory, banks are not lending money to film producers at all."

Alexandra Strelkova, director of the National Film Centre, told FNE, "Bank credits for film companies are not standard in the Slovak film industry."  

However Mistrikova sees the influence of the financial crisis looming in 2010.  "The first contributions from television broadcasters, cable operators, cinema entrepreneurs and film distributors to the new AudioVisual Fund will be in 2010.  Revenue from TV advertising has decreased because of the financial crisis so their contributions to the fund will not probably reach the levels expected a year ago," Mistrikova said.     

Slovaks have cut back their spending generally in 2009 but surprisingly the Slovak box office experienced a very good year. During the first seven months there were 2.35 million admissions compared with 1.75 million for the same period in 2008, a 34% increase, according to the Slovak Union of Distributors (http://www.ufd.sk/). Among the box office hits was the Slovak film Soul at Peace, which premiered in January and had 115,000 admissions.   

The so called "Bathory effect" caused an increased interest in Slovak films that result in notably higher attendance than in the past.

Contact information:

UFD SR
tel.: +421 (0)2 4914 0030 - 36, fax: +421 (0)2 4445 0651, e-mail: tatrafilm@tatrafilm.sk, Ing. Ivan Sollár (chairman) 

http://www.aic.sk/

http://www.sfta.sk/

Audiovisual Fund:

http://www.culture.gov.sk/sekcie/audiovizualny-fond2