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UK Film Council shuttered

By July 27, 20102 Comments

In New Zealand we have a con­ser­vat­ive gov­ern­ment and our Film Commission has just been reviewed. In the UK, the new Conservative-Lib/Dem gov­ern­ment decided to just shoot theirs in the head:

This decision could prove dev­ast­at­ing to an entire gen­er­a­tion of film-makers; for all its ups and downs, the Film Council has got involved with the likes of Armando Iannucci, Andrea Arnold, Lynne Ramsay, Peter Mullan, Sam Taylor-Wood, Kevin McDonald and Pawel Pawlikowski. How much cred­it the coun­cil can take for their film-making is up for debate, but it has at least func­tioned as the con­nect­ive tis­sue between such dis­par­ate talents.

(There’s a sec­tion on the demise of the UK Film Council in The Guardian and more reac­tion at the excel­lent aggreg­at­or Mubi.com/Notebook.)

2 Comments

  • Brett Gerry says:

    The UK Film Council is dead – long live the British film industry! http://bit.ly/as1ss4

    • Dan says:

      Good and pas­sion­ate art­icle. I’m not con­vinced yet either way. I just thought it was inter­est­ing that here in NZ we chose reform of the organ­isa­tion rather than anni­hil­a­tion and I’m con­cerned that there has been no altern­at­ive vis­ion or strategy announced. Yours would be a start.

      Is there are a 48 Hours com­pet­i­tion or equi­val­ent in the UK? It’s one way to get people mak­ing films and get them screened in front of an audience.

      And look out for my Inception review here soon. I’ll jump it up the queue as it goes to print tomorrow.