As an eye witness myself of the dynamic development of Croatian cinema in recent 5 years, both on the festival screens as well as in international film business, I can not help being disappointed in face of the crisis that fell upon  Croatian funding  system and its modern audiovisual model.

This cultural concept has the name: HAVC, Croatian audiovisual Centre, one  that  bares essential credits  for such a sudden rise of national audiovisual industry in Croatia.  It is a well known fact that film making communities of Eastern Europe and their national film funds regard HAVC as a a row model and admired blueprint. In december last year I could realize this in a conference in Zagreb, organized by EU.

Let us prevent the harmful changes that may damage its essential concept!

The freedom of artistic expression and cultural diversity of creation are essential values.  A society can hardly   secure  those values, unless  by such a tool as independent institutions,  put at arms length to Government, yet fully uninfluenced in their creative decision making by politicians, political priorities or personal interest of the politicians.

I am sure, that the actual government understands well how important this topic is. The audiovisual industry is also one of the cornerstones of our economies- in Craotia as well as in Germany. Many SMEs , supplier industries, tourism are profitting of activities in this field.

Therefore I sincerely expect that Croatian Prime minister and his Government will commence a substantial  dialogue with filmmakers, lawmakers and experts as soon as possible.

It seems necessary  to put an end to the present Crisis, with a clear objective to safeguard the  European path of enthusiastic Croatian Cinema, and its ongoing development.

Two Croatian films just got awards in Berlin. Let us beeing proud of it and continue the way on which this results were possible.