On 3 September 2020, BRICS Ministers of Culture held their fifth meeting
via videoconference. The event was chaired by Deputy Culture Minister of Russia
Alla Manilova.
The meeting was attended by Brazil’s Special Secretary for Culture Mario Frias, Indian Minister
of Culture Prahlad Singh Patel, China’s Vice Minister of Culture and Tourism Zhang
Xu, and South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Sports and Recreation, Arts and
Culture Nocawe Noncedo Mafu.
Experts discussed
current aspects of cultural cooperation among BRICS nations, including
collaboration in the fields of museum, library, music, theatre, circus and folk
arts, as well as the preservation of their nations’ cultural heritage.
«Russia is holding the BRICS chairmanship five years after the first
meeting of the BRICS Culture Ministers and the signing of the five nations’ agreement
on cultural cooperation, the founding document of our relations. We have
covered a long path together. Over this period, cooperation within the BRICS
framework has changed considerably and has acquired a number of new forms,»
Alla Manilova noted in her opening remarks.
The
participants recalled the most interesting projects they had carried out,
discussed the implementation of the intergovernmental Agreement on Cooperation
in the Field of Culture (2017-2021) signed in Tianjin, China in 2017, and
announced their plans for BRICS events in the field of culture in 2020.
«There will
be changes in the film festival of the BRICS countries, scheduled to be held
between 1 and 7 October. The traditional film forum will be held online on 7 October.
But BRICS films will be shown directly in cinema halls within the framework of
the Moscow International Film Festival,» Alla Manilova pointed out.
The sides have also reaffirmed their readiness to strengthen and broaden
cooperation within the BRICS framework. With this aim in mind, they will create
a working group on culture, whose participants will annually exchange
information about multilateral cultural cooperation and will update each other
on the upcoming large events to be held in their countries.
Following their fifth meeting, the parties adopted a declaration.
The Roscongress Foundation, a socially oriented non-financial
development institution and a major organiser of
international conventions, congress, exhibitions, business, social and
sporting, public, and cultural events, is in charge of organising events as part of the Russian Federation’s
chairmanship in the BRICS association.
Official website of the Russian Federation’s chairmanship: brics-russia2020.ru.
