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In a letter, to which the Lusa agency had access, addressed to parliamentary groups and with knowledge to the Minister of Culture, the Film Platform considers that the use of a foreign company to outline the strategy for the sector “is in itself the ballot for a certificate of political minority imposed by its own guardianship and the sector it regulates ”.
The structure regrets that the Secretary of State wants to “delegate to an English private company the definition of public policies for the sector, through the preparation of the most important strategic document.”
The Platform’s request for resignation is also extended to the direction of the Film and Audiovisual Institute (ICA), which in July signed a contract with the British consultancy Olsberg SPI for the development of the strategic film and audiovisual plan for the period 2021 – 2025.
That platform, which signs the letter on behalf of a dozen entities, between associations, festivals and a union, also regrets that the sector has learned of the work of this consultancy on the eve of the parliamentary vote on a bill that transposes a European directive. , with implications for film and television laws, and which had “a period of unrealistic public discussion.”
The entities gathered on the platform call on the parliamentary groups to postpone the discussion and vote on the bill PL 44 / XIV -programmed for next Tuesday- because “manifestly there are no conditions to carry out this task seriously.”
The presentation of the methodology and the work schedule of the strategic plan should have taken place on Friday, but an ICA source explained to Lusa that it was postponed, at the request of some participants, due to the lack of simultaneous translation from English to Portuguese.
In the letter, Plataforma do Cinema explains that “a substantial part of the entities present at this meeting decided to go out and protest”, because “no document or script was previously communicated to the convened entities”, and because the work plan would be presented in English.
The consulting firm Olsberg SPI was founded in 1992 by producer Jonathan Olsberg and has in its curriculum consulting work for, among others, the BBC, the Council of Europe, the European Audiovisual Observatory, the Film Commission of Barcelona, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and Chile and other entities in Australia, Canada or Norway.
The consulting firm’s list of clients also includes the initials ICAM, from Lisbon, which refers to the former Institute of Audiovisual and Multimedia Cinema, predecessor of ICA, which operated between 1997 and 2007.
According to the Great Options of the Plan, the next strategic plan for cinema and audiovisual must have among its objectives to promote the “regular production of audiovisual content that enhances and activates the historical heritage” and the “internationalization, dissemination and export of Portuguese Audiovisual with a view to to international diffusion ”.
The Film Platform charter is signed by the Portuguese Association of Directors, by the Independent Producers of Associated Producers, by the Apordoc association, by the Casa da Animação and by the Portuguese Film and Short Film Agency.
The document is also signed by the festivals DocLisboa, IndieLisboa, Curtas de Vila do Conde, Queer Lisboa and Porto Post Doc, as well as the National Union of Workers, Telecommunications and Audiovisuals (SINTTAV).
Outside of this letter of protest are other representative entities of the sector, such as the Association of Independent Television Producers and the Portuguese Association of Directors and Fiction Writers.
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