"The Council of the Film Center has no right to influence the decisions of the Commission, we are also not satisfied that there was no support for the film"

The Council of the Film Center of Montenegro (FCCG), which adopts the decisions of the expert commission, if there are no procedural objections, has no right to influence the positions and opinions of the members of the commission, because otherwise it would call into question the very meaning of its formation, as well as its existence.

This is stated in the response of the Film Center to the address of five non-governmental organizations regarding the lack of support for the film "The Man Who Couldn't Be Silent", signed by director Aleksandra Božović and Council President Edin Jašarović.

They said that they themselves are not satisfied with the decision of the Expert Commission, and that the FCCG will continue to improve its internal decision-making procedures in the coming period.

Božović and Jašarović congratulated the film crew on winning the Golden Palm, a prestigious international award that sends a strong message to the entire region.

"... and to express our sincere regret for the decision of the Commission for co-financing of minority co-productions that the short film in question, by the Croatian author Nebojša Slijepćević, did not receive the support of the Film Center of Montenegro at the competition realized in 2022", the answer reads.

They state that in this case there were no procedural objections to the Commission's decision.

In this way, as they point out, the internal control and autonomy of the work of the Commission is ensured, which is formed from the ranks of eminent experts, who at the same time sign an agreement on the confidentiality of information that is the subject of individual applications and whose names are not available to the public during the period of announcing and implementing the competition.

"The use of preventive mechanisms excludes any possibility that the Council, as well as anyone else, can interpret or question the positions of the Commission, except in the sense of fulfilling the legal and technical-administrative conditions of the competition", say Božović and Jašarović.

The answer also states that the Commission did not reject the film in question, but rather evaluated it in the competition procedure with the total number of points (below the line) which is obtained from the intersection of the average marks of all three independent members of the Commission.

To the question, "Is the non-recognition of these film projects a consequence of beliefs opposed to respect for human rights and the suffering of victims of war crimes, or can something else be the reason for the failure to support works of high artistic, but also cultural and historical importance", we would like to in relation to this rough and tendentious observation and assumption, let us first of all announce that the FCCG did not make any mistake in this case. As a public institution established with the intention of encouraging the production of cinematographic works, with clear competences prescribed by the Law on Cinematography (2015), FCCG does not support any imposition of thematic and problem frameworks that are part of the program strategies or agenda of other organizations, and we consider such imposition inappropriate and by unprincipled interference in the work of the institution, regardless of how much some topic in the film industry, and in society itself, may attract attention and be the subject of sensationalist public discussions and debates," reads the answer.

They also announced that the specific competition is not determined by theme or genre, and that there are no desirable or prohibited topics in that direction, but all topics are free, as well as the way of their script-production treatment and processing.

"When we talk about the "lack of sensibility for cinematographic works that have the potential to raise society's awareness and encourage them to confront the wartime past", and the "obligation of the FCCG to act in an educational manner" as you state, we will remind you that precisely by the decisions of other Commissions, at least two such feature-length films project had its premiere in the past year, the film "Sirin", by Senad Šahmanović, which is a majority Montenegrin co-production, and which just begins with a scene from the war crime in Štrpci and which "opened" the Hercegno Film Festival, as well as the film "Holiday of work", by Pjera Žalice, which is a minority Montenegrin co-production with the theme of the consequences of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and which "opened" the Sarajevo film festival. Stating that these two regionally recognizable films received direct support, the FCCG refutes the tendentious allegations that, "...you hope that the Film Center does not have a strategy to bypass such topics", the answer states.

"With full understanding of your disappointment, concern and interest that you express regarding this project, we use this opportunity to inform you in the sense of possible "responsibility" that after the successfully implemented procedure of this public competition, although we did not receive any objections within the legal deadline, we ourselves are not satisfied with the decision expert Commission, and we believe that decisions can be both wrong and good. In this sense, the FCCG will continue to improve its internal decision-making procedures in the coming period, so that as the responsible persons you address in this letter, you can more directly influence the decisions after the implementation of the competition. After the world premiere and distribution, and through our excellent inter-regional cooperation with the Croatian Audio-Visual Center, the film in question will be promoted and shown in Montenegro as part of our regular programming activities," said Božović and Jašarović.