guardian

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.)