British Film Council

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Kingofquestions

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the tories have just closed down the british film council, which has been responsible for 900 films getting funding in the past 10 years

this stupid government will ruin the arts..
 
First they decimate the UK videogame industry, now they're doing the same with Films? They're clearly a bunch of self-centred idiots...(i know, not exactly a newsflash is it:rolleyes:).
 
It's not bad, it's a disaster. The UK film industry has always been destroyed by government intervention

Just as the UK film industry was making massive improvement. The old saying about British film was that they were bad movies that no one watched but in the last few years we've had

Slumdog Millionaire
An Education
Kick Ass
Hot Fuzz
Dead Man's Shoes
In The Loop
The Damned United
Looking For Eric
Control
This Is England
The Last King of Scotland

movies that are critically acclaimed and did well. and whilst I never liked the New St Trinians and Streetdance 3D movies, the figures proved they were popular. These films need a leg up, thats now been taken away.
 
An incredibly short-term and reactionary decision. It's not only the loss from film exports but the job they do in terms of promoting Britain in things like tourism, music, fashion and products.

Typical Tory curtailing of what they percieve as the left-wing arts and that's probably me out of business after 11 years.
 
Much as I hate to cut through the hyperbole, the government have announced that all the funding received by the UK Film Council will instead by distributed via other agencies including the BFI, and in fact will rise from the current
 
Not unexpected I am surprised it did not happen sooner. The government stopped a major film studio opening a few years back because of red tape and government legislation. The amount of time wasted cost money and they moved elsewhere. British businesses being sold off or going under and new businesses from outside the UK wanting to start up but can't. It does not matter what party is in charge they seem hell bent on destroying everything in the UK.
 
In the last ten years a large number of absolutely awful UK films have also been made, all with the direct involvement of the UK Film Council. Here's a full list. "Alex And Her Arse Truck," anyone?

http://www.imdb.com/company/co0104811/

The bottom line is, if you take any set of films from any given time period, some will be good and some will be bad (and that's before you even START worrying about how 'good' and 'bad' are even defined).

The UK Film Council were often accused of being cliquey and unadventurous, of awarding funRAB to the same small group of projects and producers, and of being obsessed with rehashing the familiar old Four Weddings/Full Monty/costume drama template over and over again while overlooking genuinely innovative and original projects - in short, the very kind that CAN'T get funding elsewhere.

If these goalposts are moved, that sounRAB like a very good thing to me.
 
No, I said 'successful' not 'good' or 'bad'. Quality control has never been an issue, good and awful movies have always been made here it's profitability that's always been the struggle. The UK films of the last 10 years have been the most profitable for decades....just look at the box office takings for Slumdog Millionaire, Mamma Mia, Hot Fuzz, The Last King of Scotland, Love Actually etc. etc.
 
You're absolutely right - these were all very profitable films. But to suggest that without the UKFC they would somehow not have been profitable doesn't seem to make sense. If the BFI rather than the UKFC had given Danny Boyle
 
Hmmm maybe, as the BFI's tenure in control of the purse strings was pretty poor, and its major financing operation was shut in 1999. In fact the BFI underperforming was one of the many reasons the UKFilm Council was set up. As much as I love the BFI (who helped me alot with my dissertation), they will always be primarily a institution about the heritage and education of cinema.

But anyway whether Slumdog would have been successful with help from the BFI or not, is speculation, and i'm only interested in what is the reality. Under the watch of the UK Film Council British film has reached huge heights, that's fact not speculation. Yes there was the likes of Sex Lives of The Potato Men, Revolver etc. to cringe over. But is it really a big deal when a few films flop by a few million when the likes of Slumdog, Bend It Like Beckham, The Constant Gardener, Mamma Mia, Bridget Jones, Bride and Prejudice make hyper-profits in relation to their budgets.

Every studio financier of films backs winners and losers, it's just a part of the industry. But when a lot of films helped by the film council have won, they've won big.

10 years ago the old joke about the British film industry was that only 3 types of British movie had any chance of success (Low budget gangster movies*, Hugh Grant nice but dim Rom Coms, and yet another costume drama of some 18th/19th century novel).

But if the past 10 years under the UK Film Council's watch the type of British movie being made has broadened dramatically. Now we're getting movies like Moon, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, The Last King of Scotland, 28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire, Shaun of The Dead, Hunger, Looking For Eric, The Damned United, Kick Ass, In The Loop etc. etc.

And even the appalling movies are doing well. That terrible St Trinian's series has just greenlit a 3rd movie, and chav-tastic Streetdance 3D, has made
 
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