19/12/2005

The new Film Law, voted on 6/30/2005 and enforced since 8/19, is a turning point for film financing in Poland. As all Polish film professionals hope, it is the beginning of a new era for the industry and the market. Indeed, from the end of WW2 until the very end of the 1980s, it was impossible to even talk about the Western concepts of industry and market in relation to the Polish cinema. During the communist era, all films were produced in big state-financed studios: WFFiD (Studio for Fiction Features and Documentaries), Zodiak, Tor, Zebra, Parspektywa. Even when the political conditions were at their worst, Polish cinema proved great, thanks to the work of such masters as Andrzej Wajda, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Wojciech Has, Krzysztof Zanussi, Krzysztof Kieślowski. Yet, film production was never free —nor was anything artistic— since it was wholly financed by the state. Thus, production, sales and acquisitions, participation to festivals and international exchanges were thoroughly controlled by public authorities and subject to censorship.

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Contrary to what was expected after the Berlin wall fell down, the political change and the transition towards market economy did not help the Polish cinema develop rapidly. The 3d Republic had other priorities, mostly economic (privatising, organising politics at home and handling foreign affairs, health, education, agriculture, etc.), and the cultural sector was one of the last things the government tried to deal with until now. Cultural activities remained marginal, with less than 1% of the annual budget. Three agencies attached to the Ministry of Culture handled film financing: Agencja Scenariuszowa (script development agency), Agencja Produkcji Filmowej (production agency), and Agencja Promocji (promotion agency). In the period 1991-2000, the state would spend 1.6 (1991) to 5.9 million euros (1998) per year on film production. The number of films produced thanks to this national support varied from 13 per year (on 42 supported audiovisual projects including documentaries, features, animation films and educational ones) in 1996 to 24 in 1991 (on 39 supported films). The 21th Century started on a crisis due to the limited support (cf. interview Andrzej Zulawski): in 2001, the state spent only €2.9M euros (on 44 projects including 21 fiction features) and in 2002, the budget was down to €1.5M (for 34 projects including 13 fictions). The year after, the State gave nearly three times this amount (€4.3M) and in 2004, this sum reached €5.3M. The average budget for a Polish film is 525,000 euros.