Light at the end of the cultural tunnel

Despite the crisis, there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the Brazilian cultural sector, signaled the Secretary of Culture and Creative Economy of São Paulo, Sérgio Sá Leitão, in a webinar held on the 18th by ABPI through its Copyright and Personality Rights Study Committee. Hope resides in PL 1.075/2020, which allocates R$ 3 billion in financial aid to artists and cultural settings during the Covid-19 pandemic. The bill, already approved by the Federal Senate, goes for presidential sanction. “If approved, then we will be able to say with pride: yes, Brazil has eyes for one of the main vectors of development and has implemented a mechanism in line with the context and the need”, stated Sá Leitão.

The Secretary of Culture of São Paulo explained that the PL would result in the largest investment in the area of culture, being the first time that the federal government will transfer resources from this sector directly to states, the Federal District and municipalities, which, in turn, will invest funds in emergency income for workers in the sector, maintenance of spaces, notices, public calls, and awards. “The project will create jurisprudence, maintaining its continuity”, he said, in a debate mediated by the coordinators of ABPI’s Copyright and Personality Rights Study Committee, Ygor Valério, Ana Erika Marotta and Paula Mena Barreto. “We are focused on preparing the PL’s funds”, added Sá Leitão.

The influx of funds into the cultural sector is the answer to mitigate the deficit in the sector, which according to Sá Leitão was already in a state of poverty, even before the pandemic. “There is a lack of management and public policy in the cultural area”, he said. He also recalled that the Brazilian cultural sector involves more than 300 thousand companies, handles 2.6% of the GDP, and accounts for 4.9 million jobs. “With the estimated drop of seven points in Brazil’s GDP, the impact on the culture sector will be huge”, he added. Huge, however, he countered, is also the still untapped potential for growth, in a sector that between 2012 and 2016 grew by an average of 9.6% per year.