This short article is a brief introduction to a document from the archive of Harry Schein (1924-2006), without question one of the most influential Swedish film and media politicians in the late twentieth century. In the reprinted document Schein and a number of prominent filmmakers, politicians and intellectuals make an appeal for a new quality-based film subsidy. The early date of the document (1951) suggests that the process that preceded the Swedish film reform of 1963 (where Schein as head of Swedish Film Institute was pivotal) was longer and more complex than previuosly noted.