Society 363 / 2013

kosovo
Interview
What are the main
tasks in your position
as Minister?
The Ministry
of Culture and Sports has a wide portfolio
consisting of culture, cultural heritage,
youth and sports. Apart from the daily
work at the ministry, there are 16 other
public institutions under the auspices of
the government agency as well as seven
cultural institutions and nine cultural
heritage institutions such as the national
theater, national museum, all archeological
institutions etc.
What are your main achievements so
far?
In those last two years I have been
able to increase the support for culture
successfully. We are the only ministry of
that region to rise funding for culture
progressively. Compared to two years ago,
the budget of the ministry has increased
by seventy percent, which has allowed us
to increase not only the budget for public
institutions that we support, but also
that of the independent cultural scene.
This has also made it possible to reach our
goal of presenting Kosovo culture to the
world. Last year, Kosovo has been officially
present at the international Biennale in
Venice. We are the only Balkan country
to do that. Last year we had the possibility
to present the Kosovo film industry at
the Berlinale and in Cannes. It has been a
good year in the sense that we increased
the budget for movie production by up to
fifty percent. Last year we had two really
successful short movies to win major prizes
from South Korea and Mexico. We have
been trying to support the artists. We
help them achieve what they want to. My
vision of the ministry was, that it should
serve as a facilitator in the sense that we
help them achieve what they want to realize
and in no way to impose on them what
they have to do.
You are also responsible for the sports
in Kosovo, how is progress in that field?
With the regard to sports, we have
been concentrated to increase the quality
of the athletic performance and reaching
international recognition for Kosovo
sports federations.
Is that hard?
It is very hard. When I was appointed,
there were only a few sports federations
internationally recognized. Today we have
ten Olympic sports federations approved
Walk the walk,
not talk the talk
Memli Krasniqi has been Minister of Culture
of Kosovo for two years. SOCIETY met
him to talk about culture budgeting, Olympic
sports and his music career.
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