Amendments to the Law on Film Activity Adopted to Strengthen Support for the Film Industry

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - By adopting the Law on Amendments to the Law on Film Activity in the Sarajevo Canton, the Assembly of Sarajevo Canton at today's session provided the necessary legal basis for the Government of Sarajevo Canton to provide greater incentives for filmmaking.

As pointed out by the Minister of Culture and Sports of Sarajevo Canton, Samir Avdić, in his introductory speech, film producers, in cooperation with filmmakers, directors, screenwriters, actors and other film artists, have been achieving great world successes and awards for years, and bring the most prestigious names of the seventh art to Sarajevo for the film festival.

"Sarajevo Canton has multiple benefits from the Sarajevo Film Festival, due to attracting a large number of tourists, visitors and film enthusiasts. To make this destination even more attractive and productive for the film industry, additional funds need to be invested, which is enabled by these amendments to the law," explained Minister Avdić.

After these amendments, the Government will adopt a special regulation prescribing the type, amount and manner of using funds from the Budget of Sarajevo Canton for the needs of the film industry.

The Prime Minister of Sarajevo Canton, Edin Forto, spoke about the positive effects of these amendments to the Law.

"There are already many incentives for various projects in culture, including film activity. This is now something completely different. An important criterion in our support for film projects will be that the allocated money must be spent exclusively on those projects, with proof that the invoices were spent in Sarajevo Canton, which is an important economic effect of these amendments," emphasized Forto.

He also stressed that these incentives will affect the overall development of this type of industry, for creating and preserving jobs within it.

"We are not talking here only about people who write or direct films, we are talking about the entire infrastructure that participates in the creation of a film, about all the jobs related to its production. We want to avoid situations where films, whose action takes place in Sarajevo, are shot at other locations, precisely because of the incentives and benefits they have for that. We want to turn that to our advantage," said Prime Minister Forto.

In this way, Sarajevo Canton wants to step forward and regulate this area because, as the Prime Minister reminds, it has been proven that every mark invested in the film industry returns multiple times, and the best proof of that is the long-standing success of the Sarajevo Film Festival.