Everything is the same as last year

Do you know who UG "Culture + Sport = Love", Independent Student Movement, Network for Business Development, UG "Creative Research" or Center for Research and Education are? If you don't know, the members of the committees of the Secretariat for Culture of Belgrade know who decided which of the applicants for the funding or co-financing of cultural projects should receive money from the city budget this year.

However, you cannot ask them (the members) about those mentioned in the first sentence, because you do not know who to ask - the City of Belgrade has not published the names of the people to whom it entrusted the distribution of its money. Also, you won't find out anything about the projects to which they gave the money, nor how they earned it. The only available information on the city's website about the Competition is: on what legal basis it was organized, the names of the chosen ones, the titles of their projects, and the amount that was allocated to them. It is not even stated how much money the City will spend on this occasion.

So, everything is the same as years ago: The city distributes money to whoever it wants just because it wants to. This year, he was most generous to UG "Culture + Sport = Love" and to the Independent Student Movement. There is no information that they are registered to practice culture, which is the first condition for applying, and even less that they practice it.

On the Internet, UG "Culture + sport = love" exists only on APR (Braničevska 10 in Vračar, founded in 2014, represented by Minja Zdravković). The association with that name is mentioned only in "Blic", as the project holder in which a humanitarian performance was organized for a girl, but the question is whether it is the same UG, given that this information was published in 2013, that is, before which, according to the APR, is what was established. Be that as it may, the City granted them 3 million dinars for four hours of the project. Given that it is not known what they are like, let's believe that they are better than those who received less money than them, and we know that they are important for Belgrade's culture. They received 25 dinars for the "KratkoNEtražni film", which is 900.000 dinars more than the traditional festivals "Free Zone" and "Seven Magnificent", or 300.000 more than "Kids Fest". They were granted a million dinars for the "Music Truck" festival, and SANU, for the cycle of concerts in the Gallery, twice as much. For the "Stripostracija" project, they were awarded 400.000 dinars, while the annual program of the ULUS Gallery was estimated at 450.000 dinars. And, for "The Connection of the Incompatible - Masked Ball", they received 500.000 dinars. For the sake of comparison, the Association of Ballet Artists of Serbia received 900.000 dinars for the 25th Festival of Choreographic Miniatures, meaning an international festival, while Kondenz, a festival of contemporary dance and performance organized by UG Stanica Service for Contemporary Dance for 300.000 years, was estimated at 14 dinars.

The City donated one million dinars to the independent student movement for a project called "Open the doors of the museum and look into history". Their goal is to differentiate themselves from other student associations because they recognized that they lacked enough freedom and individual ideas, and to improve the academic spirit in society. In this sense, in 2019 they criticized Đilas, Milivojević and Lutovac for instructing the blockade of the Rectorate, and in 2017, protests in Soros' organization. There is not a single piece of information that would indicate their activity in the field of culture. It is possible that they are making their debut thanks to the Belgrade Competition.

The Business Development Network deals with business, not culture. And yet, they received 400.000 dinars for the "Opera in new clothes", plus 600 dinars for the "Opera concert on the occasion of World Music Day", which is the same amount as the estimated cycle of promenade concerts and the concert "Isidori in honor" of the Kolarac endowment. There is nothing on the Internet about the association "Creative Research" and the Center for Research and Education. They competed in the field of musical activities for projects whose titles do not suggest that they belong to this field: "Personalities of the Old Town and our present" received half a million dinars, and "Belgrade through the eyes of significant Serbs" received 000 dinars.

The public criticizes these results, as in previous years, they say that the crucial criterion for the commissions was closeness to SNS, and - they are waiting for the next competition. When will all this happen again? As has been repeated until now.