Castilla y León is setting up a commission to assess film projects seeking public money. The rules allow exclusions based on ideological content, while Spain’s Culture Ministry says it will challenge them in court.
Asked whether ‘La bola negra’ could qualify for public funding, regional spokesman Carlos Fernández Carriedo said it could. Eligibility, he added, would be decided by technical experts, not his personal preferences. The Junta has announced a commission of officials and experts to assess film subsidy applications. Regional officials say technical staff will carry out the evaluations.
The rules exclude productions deemed to involve ideological indoctrination or party propaganda. They also bar projects considered to support specific political options. The order, published by the Castilla y León Department of Culture, Tourism and Sport on 20 October 2026, says beneficiaries must respect objectivity and institutional neutrality, while upholding pluralism and service to the general interest. It covers projects from pre-production through distribution, including feature films and documentaries. Fiction projects, animation and television-series pilots are covered as well. That gives the commission a role in judging both the content of applications and their eligibility for public money.
The feature-film, documentary and series-production call has a reported budget of €325,000. A separate 2026 order covers short-film subsidies. On 23 October, Spain’s Ministry of Culture, led by Ernest Urtasun, formally submitted a requirement to the Junta concerning both orders, opening the route to challenge their terms in court. The ministry said the provisions raised concerns about freedom of creation and expression, as well as the risk of censorship and arbitrariness. The legal dispute is separate from the assessment of any individual application, including ‘La bola negra’.
The Ministry of Culture plans to challenge the conditions in court, arguing that excluding projects for ideological reasons amounts to censorship. The legal dispute is separate from the defamation proceedings in Castelló covered in the Bar España case.
Culture councillor Alberto Díaz Pico of Vox says public funding should not support ideological positions or political propaganda. He has invoked “common sense” as the test for deciding which projects should receive grants and questioned support for films that attract few viewers. His argument ties cultural funding to audience figures and a project’s political content. Díaz Pico has defended the assessment process as the work of experts and technical staff, rejecting the characterization of the rules as a veto.
The dispute has drawn criticism from other officials. Equality Minister Ana Redondo accused Vox of using the rules to impose its own ideology. PSOE parliamentary spokesman in Castilla y León Carlos Martínez compared the policy with censorship under Franco. Transport Minister Óscar Puente also challenged government involvement in artistic decisions.
The row reaches beyond subsidy applications. During the Semana Internacional del Cine in Valladolid, Díaz Pico questioned the festival’s ideological neutrality and said it gave prominence to more ideological cinema. He argued that the programme should include other forms of sociological debate, with more historical themes concerning Spain’s presence in the world. The Junta said it would maintain its economic support for Seminci despite the councillor’s criticism.
Valladolid mayor Jesús Julio Carnero, also of the PP, dismissed that criticism as a personal view and defended the Seminci as a space for freedom. Separately, a theatre company has complained about the cancellation of a play about Federico García Lorca, which it attributes to ideological motives.
