Film Commissioner starts new spending spree coinciding with PL’s campaign

Film Commissioner Johann Grech continues to resist questions on public funds he was allocated for this year’s edition of the Mediterrane Film Festival as suspicions arise that the occasion will be another promotional event for the Labour Party.

The Mediterrane Film Festival, organised by Grech last year, was heavily criticised for its excessive spending and disregard for budgetary measures.

The Shift reported that the film commissioner had spent €4 million, well over the allocated budget, in five days, and no invoices were ever presented in a government so-called impact assessment.

Apart from his role as Malta’s Film Commissioner, Grech is also a core member of the team managing the electoral campaign for the governing party in the run-up to the MEP elections.

Events organised by Grech have included contractors paid tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of euro from public funds. They supply the Labour Party with services for electoral campaigns, with which the film commissioner’s events happen to coincide.

Before the 2022 general elections, Grech shut down the Film Commissioner’s office to support the Labour Party campaign while hosting the Malta Film Awards. The event placed ministers centre stage and cost €1.3 million, although the budget was €400,000.

The contractors hired for the Film Commission’s awards were those who supplied services to the Labour Party’s electoral campaign.

The exorbitant payments related to the 2022 film awards were only revealed a few weeks ago as the government and the Film Commission refused to divulge any details, including to parliament, for over two years. A year later, in 2023, the Film Commission was equally stingy with details about the expenditure of the film festival and re-branded film awards.

Grech did not reply when The Shift asked about the budget set by the finance ministry for this year’s edition of the Mediterrane Film Festival. The finance ministry also ignored questions.

While the festival is not mentioned in the 2024 budget estimates, the Malta Film Commission’s total recurrent expenditure this year stands at €1.8 million, less than half of what Grech spent on the five-day festival last year.

According to the film festival’s website, this year’s edition will be ‘larger’ than last year’s and is being described as “the place of opportunities”.

Grech also refused to state how much he has spent from this year’s budget, including the rehiring of British comedian David Walliams, who was paid over €120,000 to present the 2022 Film Awards, which were held in the lead-up to the general elections.

Grech also refused to state which tenders were issued for services procured.

This is the second time Grech is organising a Film Commission ‘event’ coinciding with an electoral campaign.

Norman Hamilton also joined the club in 2022 when Festivals Malta organised the song festival ‘Mużika’Muzika’.

Then, a stage paid for by public funds for a festival at the Ta’ Qali MFCC tent was suddenly switched to be used for Labour’s end-of-campaign mass rally, with Festivals Malta announcing a postponement of its music festival at the eleventh hour.