Crisis in the Icaa

Susana de la Sierra resigns as general director of the ICAA (Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts) for their disagreements with the Ministry of Finance.

The until now Director General of Icaa (Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts), Susana de la Sierra, has presented the irrevocable resignation to her position before the Minister of Education, Culture and Sports, José Ignacio Wert, and the Secretary of State for Culture, José María Lassalle.

Sierra had shown on numerous occasions his disagreements with the Ministry of Finance on account of the reduction in the budgets of his department, the lack of payment of the amortizations that are due to the producers since 2012 and the refusal to apply a fiscal exemption above 18-20% (the sector asks for 25% and 30%) and reduce the cultural VAT of 21%.
After recently announcing the Minister of Finance, Cristóbal Montoro, that the fiscal exemptions for film production were going to be 20%, and that the government had no intention of reinstating the Reduced VAT to the cultural industries, Susana de la Sierra did not hesitate and raised its resignation.

When the budget for the cinema fund was 49 million, a figure that has been diminished to 33.7 million in this year. This budget, well below the 770 million of France or the 120 of the United Kingdom, has prevented the legal payment of debts for amortization for films released in 2012. In total there are 40 million euros that the Treasury owes the producers today.

Last Tuesday, responsible for the 14 federations that make up the network of cultural businessmen sent a Hard letter to President Mariano Rajoy in which they warned that cultural VAT was causing irreparable damage to industrial fabric.

Susana de la Sierra Morón was born in Santander (1975), has a daughter, has a law degree from the University of Cantabria, a Master in German law and compared to the University of Bayreuth, Germany (Scholarship La Caixa-Daad), a doctor of legal sciences from the European University Institute of Florence (scholarship of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

She is currently a professor of Administrative Law, in the specialty of Film and Culture, at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, in Toledo.

Specialist in Culture Law, in particular cinema and its taxation, has been a guest professor at the universities of Oxford and Columbia, New York (Fulbright Scholarship), where she completed her research on the regulation of cinematography in comparative law.