Farewell to Mark Schuster, a kind and helpful colleague, and a genuine authority in cultural policy studies, who passed away in February.

Audio-visual luxury
In the old days going to cinema was a rather plebeian pastime, particularly in our part of Europe. Things have changed, in our time going to the movies correlates with high GDP:

The wall
The graph above is a visual illustration of the very slow vanishing of the Berlin wall (iron curtain, Oder-Neisse line) divide. See one more example, this time selected from the latest European student barometer, showing how much engineering students from various countries expect to earn during a year at their first job.

Disputed convention
Certain attitudes also reflect the west-east divide. It is, for example, characteristic for easteners not to make themselves heard in the disputes around the Unesco convention on cultural diversity. Which, in our region, tends to be regarded as a solemn tribute to the many faces of culture, and is rarely associated with the pedestrian world of trade agreements. (A recent survey proves that members of EFAH also link cultural diversity sooner to intercultural dialogue than to market forces.) 

Said dispute is about the effect that the Unesco convention exerts on internal regulations of the European Union. Whether it obliges the Commission, when it works on trade and market rules, to really "take cultural aspects into account", according to the pious wish of Article 151? Members of the culture committee of the European Parliament keep the issue on the agenda. On 27 February a public hearing was held on the subject, about which an energetic parliamentarian gave a first hand account to a group in Krems, including BO. MEPs appear to be more determined than the culture sector in the Commission, who seem to feel more at ease at celebratory actions than to dealing with shrewd lawyers at the trade and competition departments.

Why Krems
Why in Krems? Because of EU XXL, a film festival combined with meetings and debates. The peculiar performance of EU XXL is that there dry and heavy cultural policy stuff is turned sexy. Top specialists help formulate proposals about subjects like creative content online, rights management and electronic communications framework. This year's EU XXL forum produced a five-page Resolution, presented to and discussed with representatives of the European Parliament and the Commission. No easy reading, a collection of professional standpoints on a number of issues at stake in the process of European legislation in the audio-visual field.

Film music was one of the selected themes for discussion. BO learned from a French participant, en passant, that it was a hundred years ago that Camille Saint-Saens composed the first music specifically for use in a film.

Audio-visual loyalty
Krems is in (Lower) Austria. Another diagram from the source cited above, tells about the market share of home made films. The leading position of France was predictable. The one but last place of Austria, with 1,8%, is no big surprise, either. This share, however, will surely go up, since the 2008 Oscar for the "Best Foreign Language Picture" went to an Austrian film: Die Fälscher -  The Counterfeiters. 

Truc sphérique was the main driver behind the cultural strategy document for the Žilina region. It is not easy to identify links between the jolly Stanica group and the 130 page policy opus that creates awe in the reader.

Comparative forum
Truc sphérique was inspired by the Dutch regime of transparent medium term cultural planning, which has admirers from many corners. Later this week we shall find out whether indeed the cultuurnota system stands before revision? Also: what is common, and what is different between cultural policies in Flanders and the Netherlands - under Hungarian eyes?