State Funding For Kusturica's Mini-City Queried

The Sarajevo-based Foundation Public Law Centre, FPLC, has criticised Bosnia's Serbian entity for donating 3 million euro from its state budget to movie director Emir Kusturica to build a mock town called Andricgrad.

“We believe the Republika Srpska government intelligently and deliberately violated public procurement law,” the FPLC said in Sarajevo on January 9.

The FPLC was referring to the decision to allocate the 3 million euro from the Serb entity's budget to Andricgrad LLC, a joint venture of Kusturica and the Republika Srpska.

The NGO was referring also to the entity government's two decisions in May and June 2011, which exempted the company from the normal obligation to respect the public procurement law.

The FPLC said it was irregular to bypass the law in this way and two decisions should be withdrawn.

By law, all donations of state money should be transparent and follow publication of a public tender.
 
Under the current plans, Andricgrad is to be built as part of a public-private partnership. Kusturica will be the largest contributor to the project, while the government of Republika Srpska will provide part of the funding and the town of Visegrad, in eastern Bosnia, will provide the location and infrastructure.

The mini-city will include some 50 mainly stone buildings and be located at the mouth of the Drina River, the setting for Ivo Andric's prize-winning book, The Bridge On the Drina.

Construction started in June 2011 and will take four years to complete and will cost between 10 to 12 million euro.

Kusturica last year said Andricgrad will feature stone streets, gates and towers and include a cinema, theatre, marina, gymnasium, craft workshops, hotels, sports facilities, a new building for the Visegrad municipality, galleries, churches and a han.

He is expected to use the new mini-city in his planned movies Pancho Villa and The Bridge on the Drina. The filmmaker previously built an idealised traditional Serbian village in Serbia near Mokra Gora, called Drvengrad.