Tashkent, 26 October. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, meeting film-makers at the Uzbekfilm studio, announced a reform of how national cinema is run and funded: the state will drop state orders for films in favour of subsidies, the Cinematography Agency will be abolished, and Uzbekfilm will become a national film company that does not make films itself, the president's press service said.
According to Mirziyoyev, regulation, funding and production will be separated between different organisations. Along with the Cinematography Agency, its 19 subordinate organisations and the Cinematography Fund will be abolished, and the buildings they vacate will be auctioned. Film policy will pass to the Ministry of Culture, which will set up a Department of Film Art whose head will have the status of deputy minister. This is to be done within a month.
The current state institution Uzbekfilm will be wound up and replaced by the Uzbekfilm national film company. It will select and fund projects, promote films, organise distribution and take films to foreign markets and festivals, while production will be left to private studios and independent directors. The president gave a week to get the company running. From 2027 the budget will allocate money each year at the company's request. "From now on, the state will be not a customer for films but a reliable partner of creative workers and the private sector," Mirziyoyev said. The procedure for distributing subsidies, the selection criteria and the amount of funding have not yet been disclosed.
The president explained why the old system did not work. Under state orders, one director could be given up to six projects at once, and one writer up to seven; almost half of the orders went to state studios, which prevented private producers from competing on equal terms; and the main task became completing the order quickly rather than producing a good script and film. There was also no proper distribution system. Mirziyoyev rejected the explanation that audiences had abandoned cinemas for social media: foreign films, he said, still fill theatres.
A film town, an industrial cluster of services for film production, will be built on Uzbekfilm's 10 hectares, with 400 billion soums allocated; another 80 billion soums will go to a dubbing and voice-over centre with a Dolby Atmos recording studio. Construction is due to start in March 2027. The Creative Union of Film-makers and the Association of Film Industry Representatives will be merged into a Chamber of Film-makers of Uzbekistan.
The budget for film production has grown more than twentyfold in ten years, yet, by the president's own account, it is still foreign films that fill the theatres.
What it means: Uzbekistan is abandoning a model in which the state both commissions and makes films: the money stays public, but production goes to the private sector, while the state company handles selection, distribution and promotion.
Who benefits: Private studios and independent directors, who gain access to budget money on equal terms; audiences, if the reform produces films they want to see. Employees of the 19 organisations being abolished and of the Cinematography Agency lose their current jobs; nothing has been said about what will happen to them.
Background: According to Mirziyoyev, over the past ten years the state has allocated a total of 1.2 trillion soums to cinema: in 2016 the budget spent 10 billion soums on film production, in 2026 218 billion; the Uzbekfilm studio has been fully reconstructed, and dozens of private studios have appeared in the country.
We have also reported that Sh.Mirziyoyev promised that the state will fully cover students' rent.
