The state provides 800 thousand euros for three films, the next competition within a month

With 340 thousand euros for the project "Dua" written and directed by Blerta Basholli, 240 thousand for "Dua te đeđe šiljši në det" written and directed by Leart Rama and 220 thousand for "Gjurmë" directed by Rita Krasniqi, the Kosovo Cinematographic Center has announced three winning projects for feature films, while nine other projects remain "out of the game". Indirectly, in this process, "an external intervention" of the KCC is also mentioned, which this year has a budget of two million euros only for film projects, has announced the next competition within a month

The Kosovo Film Center has selected only three of the 12 feature film projects to support. This number is seen as small in terms of support, but the country's highest film institution plans to open another call within a month. Thus, at least according to the calendar year, the Kosovo Film Center is the only one to open a competition this year, and that for only one category.

The project "Dua" with script and direction by Blerta Basholli and producer Valon Bajgora has received the most support with 340 thousand euros. Second is "Dua te đeđe šešil në det" with script and direction by Leart Rama and producer Valmira Hysenin which will be supported with 240 thousand euros. While the third is "Gjurmë" directed by Rita Krasniqi, script co-written with Jon Gojanin and producer Gojanin which has been supported with 220 thousand euros.

For this call, the CCK had appointed Tin Dirdamali, Norika Sefa, Antoneta Kastrati, Thomas Logoreci and Alireza Ghasemi as members of the jury. While the financial commission included: Ilir Hasanaj, Ujkan Hysaj and Virgjina Peja.

The projects “Sa o Roma Babo” directed by Agim Sopi, “Zanushja” directed by Sabri Pajaziti, “Babai dhe babai” directed by Besim Ugzmajli and “Lule” directed by Edon Rizvanolli also responded to the call in December last year. Also on the list of applicants were “Vajza” directed by Eki Rrahmani, “Zëri qe nuk dëgjohet” directed by Luan Kryeziu, “As numbarat e telefonit nuk i skhambiem” directed by Genc Berisha, “Vezë mjëlme” also directed by Berisha and “Born to Live” directed by Kastriot Avdyli.

After the release of the supported projects, director Besim Ugzmajli said that he congratulates all the winners, who are well-known names in Kosovar cinematography and beyond.

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"I consider that the biggest problem is the small number of projects as a result of the small amount of financial resources allocated for film projects in Kosovo. We have been informed that the CCK has a much larger budget, while the allocation per film is still over one million. This means that there continues to be a very small allocation of the budget per film and the number of projects is therefore very small", he said. Ugzmajli added that while congratulating all the winners, he thinks that in this case the competition has also been influenced from abroad.

"I think there was also outside interference in the leadership of the CCK and this outside interference also influenced the jury's decisions," he said. He did not specify what interference he was referring to.

The CCK plans to open a new call very soon. This has been confirmed by the director of this institution, Blerta Zeqiri.

"Within a month, the call for all other categories will be opened," said Zeqiri.

The application deadline for this call was postponed due to "technical problems" with the platform.

"Due to technical problems that applicants encountered on the online platform yesterday, the deadline for applying for subsidies for feature-length film projects has been postponed," the CCK statement read, through which it was announced that the application deadline had been postponed by one day, to January 13.

The functioning of the CCK during the past year has caused 2024 to be wasted. Not only with the loss of rhythm, but also with the budget. 1.6 million euros, which was the budget for 2024, was not used for projects of that year.

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Even in 2023, the competition was not opened until December, with the justification that the regulations had to be adapted to the Law on Cinematography that replaced the 2004 one. At the time, the director of the CCK, Blerta Zeqiri, had said that from 2024, the CCK plans to open two competitions within the year, one in June and the other in November. But this year it managed to open only a quarter of the competitions, and that one in December.

According to the Law on Budget Allocations for this year, the CCK has two million euros in the category of subsidies and transfers. Last year, it had 1.6 million euros.

In December, when the competition was opened and finalized on Thursday with the publication of the projects that will be supported, actor and producer Fatmir Spahiu said that the good news is that there is a competition for a feature-length film.

"For me it is important that there are as many competitions as possible. This is great news for the film industry," he said.

Since November last year, the state of Kosovo aims to become a competitor alongside other countries that offer opportunities and facilities to large cinematographic companies. With this aim, the Government has approved the Regulation on the right to rebate. Foreign companies that invest and spend directly in Kosovo for their projects will be reimbursed with 30 percent of the investment value.

Let's say, if an audiovisual company spends 1 million euros in Kosovo for a film, series, video games or advertisement, the state will return 300 thousand euros. This step has had signs of promotion by the Government, while it has divided the artistic community to some extent. But for this opportunity, a lot of campaigning has to be done. And with campaigns, the KKK is not doing well.

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In the past two years, there has been no candidate to be nominated for the prestigious "Oscar" award. For years, the opportunity has been lost because the deadline for announcing the candidates was October 2. The highest institution of cinematography had not even opened a competition through which film houses would propose their films to the "Oscar" Selection Committee. And in December of last year, the director of the CCK, Blerta Zeqiri, had given an explanation for this.

"We had a problem with emails, I'm saying it's a very technical problem that happened to us as it did and we didn't receive the email for proposals from 'Oscar' on time. The moment we remembered, 'why didn't that email come?', and when we looked at why it didn't come, it was already too late. We asked, we called and we did our best to allow us to create the commission, but unfortunately we didn't succeed", Zeqiri had said. Meanwhile, in 2023, the committee appointed by the CCK had decided not to have a candidate.