Noha Clark escribe en un artIculo: Las politicas de excepciOn cultural tienen como objetivo reducir o cortar el intercambio cultural del mismo modo que los subsidios agrIcolas reducen o cortan el intercambio de bienes agricolas". Una sacia el hambre del cuerpo, otra la del espiritu. For otra parte los subsidios agricolas del primer mundo generan hambre en el nuestro; los subsidios nuestros al cine enriquecen Ia mirada de Europa y nos integran sin riesgo econOmico para las partes.
Sin la excepciOn cultural, este catalogo se vaciarla de titulos, como se vacianan sin ella los catalogos de Berlin, Cannes, Venecia, San Sebastian o Toronto. Quedaria solo un porcentaje minima de relatos audiovisuales sospechosamente unilaterales, pretendiendo ser universales sin serb. Nuestro pals se recupera y su cine lo refleja con creces. Protegemos nuestra cultura, pero lo hacemos para compartirla con el resto de las culturas del mundo, en especial las clue bregan con nosotros por sobrevivir y trascender.
La prueba de que los paises que promocionan sus cinematografias han demostrado mayor disposiciOn para la integraciOn y la solidaridad. It is not infrequent to hear that countries which protect and promote their film industries go against free trade, against the rules of free competition and against integration. In an article, Noah Clark writes that cultural exception policies seek to reduce or curtail cultural exchanges in the same way that agricultural subsidies reduce or curtail the exchange of agricultural goods.
Comparing a wheat harvest with the film industry is not only inappropriate but is also unfair to activities whose common denominator is satiation. One satiates the hunger of the body, the other that of the soul. Besides, the agricultural subsidies of developed countries create hunger in ours, whereas our film subsidies enrich the European perspective and integrate us without posing an economic risk to the parties. There are many high-profile enemies of the cultural exception who, like Noah Clark or Vargas Llosa, rely on freedom or on the universal to suggest that cine- ma should be subject to the terms of international exchanges just as if it were a potato, a heater or a refrigerator.
There are also many of us who think differently and defend the option of each country being able to promote its cultural production as an inalienable right that is related to the very meaning of its existence. But an image is worth a thousand words and it is in that spirit that the Mar del Plata Film Festival emerges as a living example of the benefits of the cultural exception and values its fruit: full respect for cultural diversity.
