[WATCH] Financial details of Mediterrane Film Festival to be published 'in the coming days'

The financial details regarding the Mediterrane Film Festival are set to be published “in the coming days”, tourism minister Clayton Bartolo said.

Bartolo was answering journalists’ questions on Monday, almost two weeks after the Malta Film Commission was ordered to publish how much British actor David Walliams was paid to host the 2022 Malta Film Awards. 

The Fim Commission was ordered to publish the details after the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation took the matter to court, following a denied Freedom of Information request.

Bartolo said that Walliams's pay amount will be released alongside the cost of the Mediterrane Film Festival. Last September, Film Commissioner Johann Grech told this newspaper that the festival’s financial report was to be published “soon”.

The Malta Film Awards' budget in 2022 was €400,000. However, Bartolo had stated that the Malta Film Week had cost some €1.3 million.

The costs of the Film Commission’s events are often in headlines. The commission is known to refrain from publishing their costs while refusing the media’s attempts to shed light on its financial expenditure.