The National Film Centre of Latvia was established on December 23, 1991, as a state institution under the Ministry of Culture. The organisation‘s main objectives are:
- to administer the Government’s financial support to Latvian films
- to prepare legal acts and Governmental documents securing the functioning of filmmaking in Latvia
- to preserve the national audio-visual heritage
- to promote Latvian films abroad
- to co-operate with the relevant international and national organisations
- to register films and videos, as well as issue licences to video distribution companies in Latvia
- to form a data-base of Latvian films and filmmakers
Film supporting system
The financing is received from the state budget and is divided on the basis of project quality.
The decisions take expert committees, three persons in each branch
- feature films
- documentaries
- animations
- other film branch related projects (festivals, film museum, etc.)
The experts are not regular staff of the Centre, they are film business representatives appointed by the strategic board of the NFC (the board consists of representatives from the Film Centre, Filmmakers Union, Producers Association, Distributors Association, National Television, etc.). However, they may not have any interests in any of the projects submitted for the competition. When the competition is over (once a year), only the heads of the expert committees continue monitoring the process of the production all through the year.
