When the seventh edition of the Prishtina International Film Festival kicks off in April, it won’t be in Kosovo’s capital but 250 kilometres to the southwest, in Tirana. Organizers of PriFilmFest are staging the symbolic “exile” with a truncated program in response to a 75 per cent funding cut from the Ministry of Culture.

“Unfortunately, we have seen many people leave Kosovo these last few months, and now we are a witnessing a cultural event going in exile,” organisers wrote on the PriFilmFest website, drawing a parallel to the mass migration that took place in Kosovo earlier this year.

The festival saw its government funding unceremoniously slashed from 22,000 euro in 2014 to 5,000 euro as part of extensive cuts to independent cultural events and institutions under the leadership of the new Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Kujtim Shala. The ministry slashed 283,000 euros from its “projects” budget, with the biggest cuts coming in film, music, visual arts and cultural promotion.

On Tuesday, representatives from the affected entities called for Shala’s removal and for the cuts to be rescinded.

“Programs which have for years enriched the cultural experience in the capital have been forced to radically redo their program or cancel them entirely,” said Besa Luzha, head of the Chopin Piano Fest, whose funding went from 9,000 euros to 2,000 euros.

The Ministry said a commission allocated individual proposals and allocated funding based on merit.

“I would like to emphasize that in our evaluations we did not take the funds given in previous years into consideration, but rather the quality of the projects,” said Vehbi Miftari, an advisor to Shala. “We wanted to prevent a situation where we recognized the monopoly of some projects over others.”

Albert Heta, whose gallery, Stacion, received no funding this year, criticised the ministry for being non-transparent about how its evaluation process.

“There was no official response given for these actions, and even less was said about the criteria on which the decision was based,” Heta said. Heta’s gallery received 9,000 in 2014, has supported artists such as Petrit Halilaj and Flaka Haliti, who represented Kosovo at the Venice Biennale. This year, it received no funding from the ministry.

Despite the cutbacks, some areas did receive additional funds including municipal theatres and libraries. Dokufest also saw its funding increase by 5,000 euros.

“We need to keep the institutional cultural life alive at a time when municipalities, due to the lack of money, can not guarantee their development,” said Miftari.

Critics said they aren’t against the increased funding for public institutions. But they said festivals or the independent galleries, most of which have existed for more than 10 years, have become an essential part of the culture scene in the country and should continue to be supported.