One thing is obvious. Nobody on this list has ever worked in the entertainment industry. Pretty much every comment offered here is incorrect.
FACT 1: arts programs have been shown, repeatedly, to have a multiplier effect. “Every $1 increase in the demand for arts and culture generates $1.69 in total output; for every job created from new demand for the arts, an additional 1.62 positions are also created.” (Office of Research & Analysis National Endowment for the Arts.)
The profit from film production is not the point. It’s just icing.
FACT 2: People like going to movies and watch long-form TV. If these are not produced in country you’re simply shipping desperately needed hard currency overseas. And losing the economic benefits of Fact 1. Should films and TV be produced when people are starving? That’s for you to say? Ask the people. What happened during the American depression? Hungry people went to the movies. Their decision. They needed, wanted to be entertained.
All this is about money. Now we get to all the intangibles. Does have a vibrant film/tv/arts community add to the emotional and intellectual health and well-being and prestige of the nation? You tell me.
I love the arts, but why should a country with close to 50% poverty be financing romantic comedies?
No brainer. Ask yourself: why in the depression 1930s did the film industries of the US, Germany etc. produce so many fluffy romantic comedies? Because audiences, as cash-strapped as they were, wanted to be entertained and their minds taken off the unhappiness of the day. Ever see “Sullivan’s Travels”? (Paramount, 1941).