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The Slovenia Film Fund

The Slovenia Film Fund was founded in 1994 by the Slovenian Ministry of Culture.   Its role is to support the planning and production of film activities as part of the national cultural programme.   In the first ten years since its founding – which coincided with a new wave of Slovenian film - the fund supported approximately 40 feature films.   The fund also co-finances the distribution and promotion of the national film programme in an effort to enable domestically produced films to compete on equal terms with mainstream American films within Slovenia.

The Fund also promotes Slovenian films abroad, and supports international film festivals held in Slovenia, such as The Isola Cinema, Animateka, and The Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

The Fund’s recent past has not been without problems.   In 2006, the Ministry of Culture conducted an enquiry into why Slovenian filmmakers and producers were repeatedly unable to complete their projects in line with their contractual liabilities with the Slovenian Film Fund.   Their failure to meet their liabilities meant that the Fund, which had no control over the use to which the funds were put or the period over which it must be spent, was repeatedly called upon to issue additional finance to rescue projects if it wanted to see a return on its initial investment.

The Fund also invested considerable amounts of public money into the promotion and distribution of the films it financed, but had no influence over any deals concluded between the producers and distributors, which effectively resulted in a conflict between public financing and the private interests of producers.   To solve the problem, the Ministry halted regular annual film production until all unfinished film projects (8 features) were completed.

In April 2009, the Slovenian government dismissed Jelka Stergel as director of the Fund, after only five months in the role on the grounds of Stergel’s ‘unfulfilling of her job assignments in line with the existing legislation, and unsuitable programme and financial plan for 2009.’   The move came after the Fund was unable to present its 2008 business report to the state due to disagreements over it between Stergel and the supervisory board.   Stergel had also ignored a number of calls by the Court of Audit to harmonise the salaries of its staff with the salary system in the public sector.

Stergel, who was appointed after acting directors had headed the Fund for the previous two years, was temporarily replaced by Denis Miklavcic, a member of the supervisory board.

In early February 2010, the Ministry of Culture released a draft Act on the Slovenian Film Centre (“Act”) for public discussion.   The Act demanded several minimum standards for the functionality of public funds, to which the Slovenian Film Fund did not conform.   The Fund therefore needed to be revised within a two-year period ending August 2010.

The basic aim was that the new film institution should be more flexible, with a grant for film productions no longer being an investment but a subsidy, so that the entire income from the distribution of a film accrued to the producer.   It was hoped that this would strengthen the producer’s business infrastructure and boost domestic film production over the long term.

It was also proposed that political influence over the decision-making process would be neutralised if two members of the Supervisory Board were selected by representative professional associations, two by TV broadcasters, two by the Ministry of Culture and one by the Ministry of Finance.   Another provision of the act was that, if the Board was unable to appoint a managing director of the Fund (which it had failed to do for the previous three years), the acting director could be selected from among experts in the industry instead of being limited to members of the Supervisory Board as in the past.   An acting director could be appointed for a one-year period.

It was agreed that the Slovenian Film Fund would be transferred to the Slovenian Film Centre and remain a public fund.

In March 2010, Igor Kadunc, who for the past year had been a financial advisor for the Slovenian Film Fund, was appointed its general manager for a four-year term starting 25^th March 2010.

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