June 10, Pozirk. Alaksandar Łukašenka has criticized Biełaruśfilm, a state-controlled film production company, for inefficiency and poor sales as he visited it today.
The government has created conditions for film production and Biełaruśfilm in particular, but “the return so far is not just zero, but below zero. . . Neither the state nor the viewer sees the results,” his press office quoted him as saying. “There is nothing to watch! Family, youth and children’s audiences have been lost completely.”
“Let them produce, sell and survive. If they don’t, then goodbye. For how long can we support them? They actually hang on the shoulders of the state. What should we give money for?” his press office quoted him as saying.
The Belarusian ruler made public funding conditional on the production of “high-quality successful movies.”
Film production and the allocation of funds require “ironclad control,” Łukašenka stressed. “We give you one rubel, you return two,” he added.
On March 27, Łukašenka appointed Dźmitryj Siamionaŭ, an official with the culture department at the Minsk City Executive Committee, as CEO of Biełaruśfilm.
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