Cinema recovers aid for the conservation of cinematographic heritage and non-regulated training

The budgets of the Secretary of State for Culture also include the reduction of VAT on movie tickets to 10%, the increase in the Cinematography Protection Fund (which reaches 70.77 million euros) and the maintenance of tax incentives.

He Secretary of State for Culture, Fernando Benzo, presented his department's budgets for 2018 to the Congressional Culture Commission this Tuesday.

Budgets that consolidate a rise of 4.92%, a percentage even higher than that received the previous year, and which are located in 569.15 million euros. For Benzo, these budgets “should not be evaluated solely by their figures, since cultural policy cannot and should not be exclusively monetized.”

In his speech, Fernando Benzo highlighted some of the main items and projects that will be launched this year. Among them, stands out the budget increase that the General Directorate of Fine Arts and Cultural Heritage will receive, of 10.89%, equivalent to more than 11 million, so this directorate will receive a total of 112.4 million euros. A significant increase as we celebrate the European Year of Cultural Heritage this year.

Anti-piracy fight

The intellectual property protection includes a budget increase of 45.36% compared to 2017. “In fact – Benzo pointed out – a new and express budgetary subconcept is introduced: Reinforcement of means and resources of the Second Section of the Intellectual Property Commission, which has 600,000 euros.”

“This economic reinforcement will join those already carried out by the Ministry in 2017, with 10 new computer equipment, specialized software resulting from an agreement with LaLiga and the increase in staff with 6 new officials,” reported the Secretary of State.

The cinema has also seen the support of the Government reinforced with the reduction ofl VAT on cinema tickets at 10%, the increase in the Cinematography Protection Fund (which reaches 70.77 million euros) and the maintenance of tax incentives.

Fernando Benzo has highlighted, in turn, "the recovery of aid that, due to the economic situation of previous years, had to be suppressed and that this year will be called again, such as: aid for the conservation of cinematographic heritage (endowed with 300,000 euros) and aid for the making of cultural projects and non-regulated training, which will serve to enrich the Spanish audiovisual panorama from a cultural perspective.

In addition, Filmoteca Española will increase credits by 260,000 euros to maintain its programming and cultural activities and 2.34 million euros will be allocated to activities to promote and disseminate cinematography abroad.

The Secretary of State has also reported that this year the museological project of the Cinema Museum in the NO-DO building, necessary prior step to carry out the adaptation works.