NEW CROATIAN FILM
New Croatian Film, Old Production Rituals (The First Time Around)
Critics usually associate the term »New
Croatian Film« with a few film makers who showed an ability
to argue, negotiate, produce and show the public their
determined view on life. The majority of them first gathered
around the founding of OTV in the 1980’s, when a group
of communist liberals passed a decision to allow young
film makers and journalists to broadcast. This is how the
independent television channel came that entertained the
general public during the time when the Yugoslav federation
was falling apart came into being. The majority of the
young filmmakers from OTV took with them the roots of their
style, i. e. a subversive mix of lucid irony and decorative
escapism. The time which followed brought with it complex
problems.
The tiny Croatian film market relies a great deal on
the system of public financing which was not solved adequately
in time, and therefore, in this mechanism, the greatest
burden was carried by the national television whose experienced
professionals and continuity of production allowed young
authors to realize their projects during a period of total
breakdown in the national cinema during 1993 and 1994.
Croatian Television’s Drama Program participated in almost
all of the feature films made up to today with the usual
50 to 80 percent of the budget being covered by them. At
the same time, funds from the Culture Ministry have dwindled
down to almost ridiculously small amounts of money. This
is why the shackles of love and hate that tie authors with
television, television with the Ministry, and the Ministry
with the authors, have gone beyond any rational boundaries,
and this personalized manner of negotiation and the long
tradition of abusing authority has made people absolutely
suspicious of every system, every regulation, and every
concrete model of support for film production.
This condition
also manifested itself in the non-acceptance of the proposal
that film makers sent to the Culture Ministry during preparations
for the new Law on Film, which illustrates that better
days are still a long way off for Croatian film production.
Hrvoje Hribar |
