The Public Council under State Agency of Ukraine for Cinema demands the withdrawal of the decision on the reorganization of the Dovzhenko Center

The Public Council under State Agency of Ukraine for Cinema demands the revocation of the decision on the reorganization of the Dovzhenko Center.

The text of the statement is published by "Media Detector".

The authors of the appeal emphasize, among other things, that the Public Council itself learned about the decision of State Agency of Ukraine for Cinema from the mass media and considers it dubious and non-transparent. In particular, due to the fact that the main reason for the reorganization was the financial unprofitability of the institution.

"From the articles published in "Ukraiinska Pravda" [“Ukrainian Truth”] and the column on "Censor.net" by Ms. Maryna Kuderchuk, it becomes clear that she, as an official, is the measure of the effectiveness of cultural institutions. Obviously, these are financial indicators. And it was the financial unprofitability of the Dovzhenko Center that allegedly turned out to be the main reason for the reorganization. According to this logic, the National Art Museum, the Vernadsky Library and almost all educational institutions should be closed. We would like to remind the heads of State Agency of Ukraine for Cinema that their tenure in office is a temporary phenomenon, while the value of art and the activities of cultural institutions are not calculated according to the logic of supermarkets," the Public Council noted.

The Dovzhenko Center has been working as a film fund since 1996. It has 60,283 units of film materials in its storage — game, animation, documentary and non-fiction tapes, mostly of Ukrainian production. The Dovzhenko Center combines a modern film repository, the only film copying laboratory in Ukraine, a Film Museum, a paper film archive, a media library and its own publishing house, as well as preserves, researches and disseminates the national film heritage in Ukraine and abroad.

• On August 17, 2022, the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Center announced that the State Agency of Ukraine for Cinema issued an order on its reorganization, which, in fact, means the liquidation of the institution. All films from the collection and property of the Center must be transferred to the State institution "Scientific Center of Cinematography of Ukraine", which was created during the Yanukovych era. The Minister of Culture, Oleksandr Tkachenko, stated that "it is not about liquidation, but only about reorganization."
• State Agency of Ukraine for Cinema, in turn, assures that they are not liquidating the Dovzhenko Center — they will only take away some of the functions, and no one will be fired.
• The Dovzhenko Center was removed from the sphere of management of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy and handed over to State Agency of Ukraine for Cinema by decision of the Cabinet of Ministers at the end of January 2022.