None of Chronograph award-winning films will be broadcast on national TV channels

No one of the films that won awards at the documentary film festival Chronograph will be put out by the national television channels as none of them proposed doing this. Such an announcement was made by the festival organizers at a news conference on June 11, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to the artistic director of TV “OWH Studio”, Leontina Vatamanu, the local TV channels did not express interest in broadcasting the author documentary films. “As organizers, we feel that the television channels are indifferent and do not want to show these movies,” Vatamanu said. She also said that besides promoting the author movies, the festival aims at facilitating the establishment of contacts between the film authors and journalists by creating a communication space, opportunity that must be used to full extent. As the studio’s director Virgiliu Margineanu said, some of the authors of the winning movies consented to screening these films on the national TV channels free of charge, while the others said this should be done for payment. Most of the authors willing to offer their movies gratis are from Southeast European countries like Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, while the film makers from more developed countries say that the documentaries as any other production cost money, the director of TV “OWH Studio” said. In 2007 as this year, about 10 film authors expressed readiness to offer their works at no cost. Virgiliu Margineanu said that the price charged by the TV channels for broadcasting a movie depends on a number of criteria and can vary between 100 and 100,000 euros. At the same time, we cannot speak about film sales in Moldova at a time when there is no film distribution industry and, respectively, a buyer of national movies. In order to improve access to the pictures shown as part of the Chronograph festival, the organizers promise to organize a presentation of these movies until the end of June. In the future, they could also create a Videothek so that the festival’s archive could be used by the interested persons. The conference participants brought up the appearance of a new journal on Moldova’s information market. The journal is designed to be a bridge between arts. The founder of the monthly magazine of literature, art and attitude “State of Emergency”, Dumitru Crudu said that the aim of the journal is to initiate a dialogue between the contemporary literature and art and to facilitate changes of mentality in the society. The journal’s central idea is a social culture that promotes the man as a key figure, Dumitru Crudu said. The May number of the publication is dedicated mainly to the documentary film festival Cronograph. The first number of the magazine was brought out on January 13. Chronograph is the only documentary film festival in Moldova and was founded seven years ago with the aim of cultivating a taste for this kind of art to the Moldovan public. The seventh edition of the festival took place between May 15 and 19. Twenty-eight movies competed in the basic section and 14 movies in the cadRO section. The pictures were made by producers from 23 countries. Moldova was represented by the films of two directors: Dana Doneica and Dragos Turea. The Top Prize and the Trophy of the seventh edition of the International Documentary Film Festival “Chronograph” went to the film “Marcela”, directed by Helena Trestikova from the Czech Republic. The prizes for other movies were offered as part of sections.