Andalucía expresses concern over drastic reduction in cinema funding by Ministry of Culture
The Minister of Culture and Sports, Patricia del Pozo, expressed her regret at the plenary meeting of the Sectorial Conference on Culture that the Ministry of Culture drastically reduced aid to the film sector, which in 2024 had 20 million allocated to project development and exhibition theaters. «We are concerned about how lines of subsidies such as project development have been affected, and how aid to cinemas has been reduced almost by half, from 14.5 to 8.5 million,» she noted.
At this point, Patricia del Pozo, who participated remotely in the meeting held at the Monastery of Yuso in San Millán de la Cogolla (La Rioja), pointed out that «in addition to the usual reduction of funds, the Ministry of Culture never called for subsidies for cinema exhibition theaters in 2024, after it was decided that the funds would be centralized in the Spanish government.»
This reduction in Ministry of Culture funds contrasts with the reinforcement of incentives that the Andalusian government has made available to the film sector this year, approaching 6 million euros, the largest allocation for audiovisual creation, promotion, and production since the inception of these grants. Specifically, 5,300,000 euros have been allocated to audiovisual production and 620,846.94 euros to project development.
In addition to the investment, the Ministry of Culture and Sports has made significant improvements in aid management, advancing the call schedule and resolving before March 31. «We have positioned Andalusia as the only autonomous community in Spain that resolved its grants in the first quarter of the year, allowing the Andalusian audiovisual sector to have an advantage in accessing other sources of funding,» the minister said.
Minister Patricia del Pozo reported that «Andalusia has already advanced the regulatory bases for aid to cinema exhibition theaters, awaiting the Ministry of Culture to transfer the credit of 1,473,333.34 euros that corresponds to us in the distribution among the autonomous communities. These incentives will be called in a non-competitive concurrence, providing greater agility to the process.»
Furthermore, accompanied by Vice Minister Macarena O’Neill, Secretary General of Culture and Museums Innovation José Ángel Vélez, and Secretary General of Historical and Documentary Heritage Mar Sánchez Estrella, Del Pozo celebrated that their request to include two Andalusian representatives in the expert committees responsible for evaluating aid applications from the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA) has finally been met.
During the Sectorial Conference on Culture meeting, Andalusia appreciated the reorientation of the Mondiacult 2025 event, where autonomous communities will finally have a voice, while also agreeing to the call for aid for art and education projects and for promoting cultural activities in rural areas, addressing their demands regarding deadlines and execution criteria.
