Cultural and Artistic Association Positive (KUD Pozitiv) is the coordinator of the project Divided God in which the organization Filmarche – Selborganisierte Filmschule Europas, Berlin is participating as a partner group. 

The project which is approaching the problem of intercultural co-operation is joining partner-groups from Istanbul /Bilgi University/, Novi Sad, Serbia /Terra Film/ and Film Club Mostar from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The main topic is the role of religion that conditions different cultures of the European continent and is often in the background of individual concrete problems and conflict situations.
Do religions contribute to tolerance and to solving of the aforementioned concrete conflicts or do they to some extent actually generate these problems? The answer to this question is in no way one-sided but multifaceted. In the project Divided God we will attempt to approach it through experimental research which will be based on young people spending time with each other by participating in:
- research based video workshop
- public panel discussions /talks/ organized as a part of youth exchanges
- Internet forum etc.

Research will be substantiated by the participation of experts from the fields of humanities and intercultural studies providing their expertise and mentorship, by anthropological-sociological video research and by interactive inter-media web art. 
       
The final results – the proposed goals of the project will be:
- an interactive and inter-media web page that will contain updated results of the theoretical and practical research and will keep track of the development of the project,
- a publication that will publish theoretical contributions of the experts, thoughts and opinions of the participants and the whole breadth of the conducted research along with the complete results of the project,
- a video-documentary and other shorter video creations that will be the product of the research-based video workshops taking place in the countries and cities of the partners participating in the project. 

The project will be executed in the year 2007 and will end in the first half of the year 2008 with presentations in all the participating partners’ countries. 

• We entered the project in a public competition of the European Cultural Foundation in Amsterdam where it was approved and granted 25.000€.
• EU programme Youth granted funds for youth exchanges in Ljubljana, Mostar and Novi Sad in the total amount of 46.000€.
• Partners from Turkey and Germany will enter their applications at their national agencies of the EU Youth programme to meet the upcoming deadlines for public competitions and thus assure funds for the exchanges in Istanbul and Berlin.
• All the partners in the project cooperate in collecting the funds and expanding the joined budget of the project by finding appropriate international, national and local foundations. In Slovenia we have entered two more applications in January, one addressed to the USA Embassy in Ljubljana /NGO Development/ and the other on the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia /Public Competition for Inter-media Projects/.

The additional collection of funds will help cover the costs of exchanges and planned production that exceed the amount of funds as yet collected. It will also enable us to raise the level and the quality of the final productions and of the project as a whole.

We have managed to include several top experts from the fields of intercultural studies and research documentary film into the project. Let me mention just two internationally renowned names: Kevin Robins, consultant to Council of Europe, DG IV, on issues of cultural diversity and Želimir Žilnik, film maker and film pedagogue from Novi Sad.

We intend to include additional “local” experts and activists from countries in which the youth exchanges will take place. The project will also be opened to establishments and institutions that would recognize the compatibility of the project with their ongoing projects and research.

The letter of intent was written with the purpose to help our partner Filmarche – Selborganisierte Filmschule in their endeavor to co-finance the project by appealing to the Robert-Bosch-Stiftung foundation. 

Filmarche and the Berlin part of our exchange and research are crucial for the successful realization of our project because this area is one of the “epicenters” of open questions and attempts to appropriately address intercultural dialogue.

Partners who come from other European cultural environments can perhaps contribute to constructive solutions of particular problems from their unburdened viewpoints. The research and the entire project can undoubtedly teach us a lot. We are certain that the results of the project and the methodology developed in the process – of how to approach this currently perhaps the most urgent European problem – can benefit many different establishments, institutions and foundations that research, analyse  or co-finance the questions of intercultural dialogue and cooperation.

The project already has its web page /www.pozitiv.si/dividedgod/ where a more comprehensive presentation of the project and a first impression of the process of its formation can be found.

Sincerely,

Drago Pintarič,
Leader of the project Divided God