11 January 2012
Posted in
Film
By Olivia Hetreed
It's strange what politicians do to themselves - you have an open goal and so you shoot yourself in the foot.
The 'film community' as the media likes to have it, is all poised to welcome the Film Policy Review (FPR), in which Chris Smith and industry advisers have taken very careful soundings across the industry and come up with some bold but practical suggestions to help film-makers reach audiences, grow their businesses and sustain the industry rather than stumbling from one project to the next. But before that review can be launched next Monday, as already organised by the Department for Culture Media and Sport with Ed Vaizey and others due to speak, the Prime Minister makes a pre-emptive announcement and sets the commercial cat amongst the creative pigeons.
As far as one can tell from the early hints and whispers about the FPR there is no suggestion that funding will be withdrawn from arthouse projects or that Mike Leigh or any other film-maker is being sent off the pitch. Rather there is a push to allow independent producers to build businesses and attract investment by enabling them to hold on to some of the recoupment from their films, should they be successful.
And coupled with this, in response to the very strong case argued by the Writers' Guild, together with producers' organisation PACT and Directors UK, the bodies representing the key creative triumvirate of producer, writer and director, a recognition that creators need to be connected to the outcome of their work. At present it makes no difference if a film is successful or not: unless it is an absolute runaway hit the filmmakers have no way to access the revenues generated. So when they come to make their next film they must start all over again from scratch, raising money, selling all their interest in the project to get it financed - and once again being unable to build a company, fund the crucial development of ideas into scripts, or even sustain a career in which they are a proven success.
Amanda Nevill signalled the new role of the BFI very helpfully last spring at the British Screen Advisory Council conference when she said the BFI wanted to stand beside filmmakers not between them and government (the position taken by the UK Film Council). This is what the FPR seems to be following up on: arguing for sustainable funding policies and collaboration between distribution and production and among the filmmakers themselves.
While we have to wait till Monday for the full story let's not start despairing as some knee-jerk response, when we might just be looking at a good news story that somebody has accidentally spun the wrong way!
Olivia Hetreed is Chair of the Writers' Guild Film Committee
