This year, the Management Board of Film Center Serbia has decided to add a competition for eminent directors, which has not existed so far, to the list of already existing competitions. Our intention was to provide eminent directors with a special opportunity to produce their films with the help of the state, in a special competition, and in the desire for Serbian cinematography to get a new masterpiece.

In that sense, the attempt of one segment of the public to advocate and defend the competition that was in fact introduced by this Management Board is unclear, although there was ample opportunity, but no one before us paid attention to eminent directors or this positive practice which is a staple in many countries.

We extend our recognition and respect to the competition commission, which did its job professionally and responsibly.

However, after the competition, we noticed that two of the three selected films were repeatedly rejected by various competition commissions of the Film Center, and concluded that this special competition did not lead to the expected result – to provide a chance for a new work by eminent directors, instead of providing privileged status to films that have been rejected in regular competition.

Also, the competition commission decided to allocate equally insufficient funds to all films, while the Management Board believes that this competition should serve to eminent directors produce their films faster, with significant financial support, and in that sense a clearer selection needs to be made. Bearing in mind that there is a small number of directors who can apply for this competition, we believe that it is better for one project to receive significant funds, than for all three submitted projects to receive insufficient funds. We also realized that it is necessary to take into account the age structure of the director, where the older ones would have some kind of mild advantage.

For these, and no  other reasons, we decided to repeat the competition, better specifying the conditions. Of course, the same directors can apply, and certainly  some of these eminent names of our cinema will receive funding at the repeated competition, because it has been created for them.

We understand that it has become part of the usual public milieu to politicize every competition, to declare as victims all those who did not receive funding for the film even though the state regularly supports them, to neglect the importance of what has been achieved, and to reduce the number of supported films, and therefore, as the Management Board, we do not usually participate in media campaigns, but do our job as prescribed – in an institutional way.

On this occasion, we believe that we are obliged to address the public, bearing in mind the importance of this competition, as well as the importance of what has been done in Serbian cinema thanks to Film Center Serbia, an institution that is now been dragged into the political quagmire by certain individuals.

The money that the Film Center distributes is the money of the citizens of Serbia, and we are obliged to conduct every competition so that every dinar is spent in the best way. In that sense, we expect that the competition for eminent directors will be repeated by the end of the year, and that more precise conditions of the competition will lead to films worthy of the name of great authors and Serbian cinematography.

We strongly condemn the insults directed by Goran Marković towards the President of the Management Board – we are a collective body that made the decision by a democratic majority and we stand behind it, and it is shameful and indecent to attacks it. In the future, as before, we will comment on competitions exclusively in an institutional way.