Forget Michael Bay making Transformers 3. Forget Johnny Derp (I mean Depp) making Pirates whatever. The UK Film Council is being abolished by having it’s funding cut by the government. And why I hear you ask –
“The UK Film Council is to be axed as part of a cost-cutting drive by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), it has been announced.” – BBC News
For those that don’t know the UK Film Council (UKFC) was made in 2000 and was given £15m to invest in UK, talent. This is (as you can imagine) really bad news because it is hard enough for young talent to get a film funded and a lot of brilliant British films had been funded by the UKFC. Films such as Jane Campion’s 'Bright Star'; Oscar-winning filmmaker Andrea Arnold's second feature 'Fish Tank'; Armando Iannucci's 'In The Loop'; and Sam Taylor Wood's 'Nowhere Boy', written by Matt Greenhalgh where all funded and possibly wouldn’t of been made without the help of the UKFC.
"People will rightly look back on today's announcement and say it was a big mistake, driven by short-term thinking and political expediency," – Time Bevan (UK Film Council chairman)
What does this mean for the future of British Cinema? Who knows? In the recent Little White Lies (#30, on sale now) there was an article about the future of cinema and with this news surfacing today it will have a great knock on the industry. Will something pop up which is similar? Will other investors like Film4 be swamped with people trying to get their films funded? It is truly bad news for film makers and fans.
Sources
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