Martin Scorsese released a video with a powerful message that urges the government of Uruguay to support local cinema and its extensive film library, called La Cinemateca, which continues to face serious financial troubles.
“A society that supports its cinema, is a wise society, and that’s why I want to send this message to the Uruguayan people and their government, to keep supporting their cinema, their authors, and the Cinemateca,” said Scorsese in the almost 30 second video clip.
La Cinemateca de Uruguay was created over 60 years ago and now houses approximately 20,000 Uruguayan and international film works. The institution funds four highly visited movie theaters, known for screening independent and international films that are not readily available anywhere else in the country.
It’s latest campaign titled #SoyCinemateca is being used to raise awareness on various social media platforms. Uruguayan singer Jorge Drexler, Argentine actress Mercedes Moran and Spanish film director Javier Rebollo also echoed Scorsese’s message with their own short videos.
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A huge thanks to Mr. Scorsese for supporting us!! We’re going through serious financial troubles, it’s true. We, everyone envolved in the amazing process of making a movie, gathered yesterday in front of the same government building where a commitment toward us, the filmmaking industry, was made a few years ago. Today, they are not honoring our comitment and we have less and less funds, 40% less!! It has always been difficult to make a movie over here, and now it’s just plain ridiculous. When a movie project wins and gets its national funds the next step is to apply to international funds so it can maybe come close to the budget needed. In order to apply to these international funds, one of the requirements is to have a certain percentage of the budget already covered, but how can we do that if they give us less money each year?! We’re not asking for much, we’re not asking for a rise in the founds, what we are asking is that they honor the signed commitment we agreed upon. What we want is that the fund adjust each year along with everything else, not be left behind like we are. The funds never even covered 50% of the film’s budget and with it decreasing each year it’s putting barrier after berrier. A lot of us work for free so that the film can be made! And that’s really common. But we also can’t keep working for free, we have to pay bills. Either way, it’s not even about us, it’s about the films, how can a country not support it’s own culture? We are appreciated for our films elsewhere in the world but over here, at home, we’re being overlooked. Hopefully, we are making ourselves heard. Hopefully we hear back from the government soon. Thanks to everyone supporting us!!