The Ukrainian film industry is in crisis after a national funding agency exhausted its resources in the wake of the country’s conflict with Russia.
Kiev reduced the Ukraine National Film Agency budget last year as part of austerity measures designed to rebalance the books during a time of struggle. The organisation now finds itself unable to fund new projects, according to the Ukrainian online newspaper Gazeta.ua. Among film-makers affected are Miroslav Slaboshpytskiy, whose film Plemya (The Tribe) won the 2014 Cannes Critics’ Week grand prize. His new project, Luxembourg, had been expected to receive funding after winning praise from administrators in an annual competition for financial assistance.
The agency’s £1.8m (63.8m hryvnias) 2015 budget is not expected to cover a shortfall of cash required to pay for existing films which the agency has agreed to fund. The organisation needs to find £3.5m (120.7m hryvnias) for projects it is already contracted to finance.
“The cinema agency, together with the culture ministry, are taking all efforts to ensure stable funding for the [film] industry within budgetary constraints, also looking for alternative sources of support for the national cinema,” said agency chief Filipp Ilyenko in a statement on the organisation’s web site, as translated by The Hollywood Reporter.
Ilyenko, the son of prominent film-maker Yuri Ilyenko, was only appointed in August after former head Katerina Kopylova was sacked six months previously following the Maidan revolution. The agency’s funding was cut by almost half last year from an initial £6.5m (115m hryvnas) to just £3.8m (67.6m hryvnas), according to reports.
An exhibition tax on foreign films was floated earlier this year as an idea to help plug the funding gap. But no legislation has yet been introduced.
