Already 1999, as a result of the Committee meeting in Roermond (NLD), an additional category named “Schoolfilms” was discussed and voted upon as a proposal from the Swiss Federation. Six votes were in favour and seven votes against. Despite this result the General Assembly of 1999 in Lapeenranta (FIN) got to vote once again on this issue and then the result was contrarily, thus in favour of the new category "Schoolfilms”. In our opinion an illegitimate decision with respect of the UNICA Statutes.

According to the voting as a result of the General Assembly 2005 in Roermond (NLD) since then the abbreviation UNICA stands for Union Internationale du Cinéma (the anachronistic words “Amateur” or “non professional” have been removed from the UNICA Statutes). As from 2006 all advertisements of every UNICA organizer abandoned the old-fashioned word “Amateur” moreover because the industry isn’t prepared to donate finances for “Amateurs” or “non professionals”. Thus it’ll be obvious that author theory films can compete with Jeunesse and University made films on the same level. The revised UNICA Statutes that came into force January 2012 don’t prohibit any author to invest money in his film, to engage professional actors without paying salary or make use of large scale technical equipment for free.

The new Regulations for the UNICA Contest (2012) in the preamble state: UNICA organizes annually a World Film Competition for its members. Under Chapter “Participation”, par 2a it says: The competition is reserved for the members of UNICA. Each federation may enter a program. Under the same Chapter , par 2b it just says: The films may not have been produced by the author for commercial purposes.

Conclusion: according to the denotation of the abbreviation UNICA – Union Internationale du Cinéma all kinds and types of short film should be able to enter to the annual World Film Competition, if only they have been made without any commercial purpose, and be judged without any subdivision in categories.

To avoid any future accusation of hypocrisy, FEDIC - Italian Federation of Cinema Clubs - proposes to abandon categories SCHOOLFILMS or YOUNG PROFESSIONALS as well as JEUNESSE and as a result abolish also from the concerned separated voting of the jury, all the more because until now for calculating the overall winner of the festival both ranking lists equally have been taken into consideration, a non-sense in the true meaning of the word.

Best regards,

Dr. Massimo Maisetti
President of FEDIC
Milano, January 10th 2013