Leader of the festival Gerald Grote takes it with a sense of humour: At the opening ceremony of Green Screen he presents himself on screen between the card-board cut-outs of the president of the legislative assembly Klaus Schlie and governor Torsten Albig.
ECKERNFÖRDE/KIEL. "Green what? Never heard off. Don't know what to do with that. " When a camera team visited the federal assembly open day only a few weeks ago to ask federal state politicians which relevance Green Screen has for Schleswig-Holstein they got these or similar answers from the delegates. Only a few of them knew that green Screen is an international nature film festival taking part in Eckernförde in September and attracting more than 15.000 vistors from all over the country.
When GreenScreen opened for the 9th time in the completely sold out civic centre and in the presence of many international film makers and producers the small opener was shown which made people not only chuckle but also caused astonishment.
Major of Eckernförde Jörg Sibbel took spontaneously the opportunity to welcome the 500 guests cordially to the: "biggest, annual nature film festival in Europe with unique characteristics and the rating 'free of national funding'
Despite annually submitted requests from the festival organizers they did not succeed to get financial funding from the state. Neither film evenings at the assembly, nor talks with the economic and cultural affairs speakers of the parliamentary parties, nor the distribution of the detailed programmes brought success, laments the leader of the festival Gerald Grote. According to him only the "cultural pillars", Nordischen Filmtage in Lübeck and the Filmwerkstatt Kiel, are receiving funding from the federal state. Green Screen did not get its slot in the federal budget- except a film price endowed with 5000 Euro.
The city of Eckernförde continues to support the festival, which has a budget of 300 000 Euro and is born by more than 100 volunteers, despite of the strained financial situation. The major Jörg Sibbel announced the future funding of Green Screen with 50 000 Euro annually at the opening ceremony on Thursday.
Despite the bad news from Kiel Gerald Grote has not lost his sense of humour. When he asked a youngster recently 'what is a politician?' he got the following answer: "Politicians are people who don't have any time to think because they always have to talk."
Translation: Barbara Schlesinger