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On the 26th of July the axing of the UK Film Council was announced - the news was immediately met with an outcry from both inside and outside the industry. Cultural Secretary Jeremy Hunt had promised a “golden age” of culture and media, but seemed to have delivered a film industry that is economically prosperous and culturally poor. UK Film Council Chairman, Tim Bevan certainly thought so, emphasising that it “was a big mistake, driven by short-term thinking and political expediency.”
Economically, the main concern is that the annual £15 million contribution from the Lottery will loiter in a bank vault rather than nurturing emerging directors. The official line is that Lottery money will still be available, and a body to manage film funding is to be decided upon. Even if funding does disappear, the 1980s film funding crisis stands as a good omen as it was the quantity of films released rather than their quality that was affected. We still got the likes of Chariots of Fire, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, and Educating Rita.
The second concern is that the profit margins of £5 to £1 would be drastically reduced. However, such profit margins had been reached by the UK Film Council riding the wave of the profit making 1990s of Four Weddings and a Funeral, rather than by their own steam. Despite having gained successful returns on box office hits such as The Constant Gardner and Vera Drake, there have been more than a few failures, the worst being Sex Lives of Potato Men.
The demand for an “American funding model” of greater private funding may result in financial instability in the industry. Sponsors usually move quickly from project to project for publicity, show a preference for box office winners, and often interfere with the creative process. For example when Chrysler donated $4 million to Terminator, it was on the condition that their cars would take cameo roles in the film.
Could private investment create more innovative cinema? The UK Film Council have gained a reputation for funding generic feel good movies while leaving social realism at the wayside. Without the UK Film Council perhaps more risky, innovative cinema, along the lines of Ken Loach’s Poor Cow and Amber Collective’s Like Father, will come to the forefront. Hopefully, Hunt’s desire to push commercialism over individuality and create an industry dominated by international investment will not stand in innovations way.
It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve been asked to crawl into bed with American picture houses though. In the 1960s Britain created American Blockbusters Superman and Star Wars, and more recently Harry Potter and Chicken Run. Some of most successful of UK Film Council funded films are owned by international studios: for example, Slumdog Millionaire by Pathe (French) and Bend it Like Beckham by 20th Century Fox (American).
What makes the British Film Industry great is not financial backing but the high quality of production that we deliver. Because of this American Investment should remain the same as decades before. While the initial fallout may be unsettling the results should give us far less Sex Lives of Potato Men and far more Educating Ritas.
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