Robert Russell (President CRN International) and NikolaOtas (President CRN
Serbia)
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THE REPORT CONCERNING FIRST FINANCIAL GRANT (July,1,2004. - June,30,2005)
Activities concerning Mr.Ubovic extended
throughout the last year. I had several meetings with Mr.Ubovic and his lawyer
Mr.Tomic and the representative of the Minister of culture. We agreed upon
making an international exhibition with the support of the Ministry of culture
in order to rehabilitate Mr.Ubovic. Mr.Ubovic took upon himself to provide a
gallery and I am to invite our collegues to send their works. I hope that by
the end of this year this project will be finalized.
At the beginning of this year, from January
4th-7th, I was in Bulgaria (Sofia) and I had contact with a lot of collegues
cartoonists, as well as with Mr. Ilian Savkov, the leader of CRN for Bulgaria.
Among the other things we discussed the position
and the rights of the cartoonists in my country nad in Bulgaria. The
conclusion was that our problems were almost identical.
From 26th to 28th of Jannary I took part in a
workshop in Ploesti - Romania.
From 13th to 16th of March I was a guest at
Strumica festival of caricature and I made contact with Macedonian cartoonists
nad Mrs.Natasa Kostovska, the leader of CRN for Macedonia. I gave her
documentation of our organization so that they could register theirs.
We talked about our mutual problems and they
seemed to be pretty much the same.
From 10th-25th of May - Exhibition dedicated to
Greek caricature.
In the course of this manifestation together with
the Cartoonists Associations in Serbia we organized on May 9th - introducing
of Greek cartoonists and on May 11th - meeting dedicated to cartoonists rights
and their position in Greek and in this country.
It was concluded that we did not have similar
problems and that the Greek collegues were in a much better position than we
are as concerns possibilities of cartoons publishing and protection of authors
rights.
July 4th-16th - In cooperation with our
organization of cartoonists we made an exhibition of our authors. Within this
manifestation we exchanged ideas of our future activities.
Mr,Vlahovic and I had numerous meetings in an
attempt to find an adequate place for exhibitions, which could also be used
for gatherings of the cartoonists, workshops, etc.
The situation with the cartoonists rights is
rather unsatisfactory at the moment.
Our current problems are as follows:
- The authors have very little possibilities for
publishing their works. This is especially true for young authors. The only
chance for affirmation are the festivals, while the possibilities in printed
media are minimal.
- One of the serious problems is payment of fees
for published works. The fees are minimal and payment is often delayed for
various reasons and sometimes for an indefinite period of time.
Nikola Otas
CRN leader for Serbia & Montenegro
