“The proposals of the Ministry of Culture are an element of the shielding package prepared by the government for people conducting various forms of activity, who will feel severe consequences in connection with their temporary reduction of activity”, said Anna Pawłowska-Pojawa, the director of the Information Centre of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

One of the elements of the support package is a proposal of a programme for institutions that plan to expand their activities with the use of electronic communication channels and forms of presentation of artistic activities on the web. 

The Ministry also plans to introduce a support mechanism for the organisers of events that could not take place due to the introduced restrictions, including film distributors.

The Polish cinemas and theatres, as well as universities and other educational institutions, were closed on 12 March 2020. Agora, the owner of the Helios cinema chain (one of the biggest cinema operators in Poland) has already estimated losses.

“If we are talking about a two-week period, it should not be a big impact, these results can be made up for. We are talking about a loss of about 2 m EUR / 9 m PLN in revenues, and when it comes to the result, it will be lower from 274,489 EUR / 1.2 m PLN to a maximum of 343,275 EUR / 1.5 m PLN”, Tomasz Jagiełło, president of the Helios cinema network and member of the board of Agora, said in an official statement.