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EXCLUSIVE… UPDATE: John Woodward, CEO of the UK Film Council, has e-mailed staff telling them today’s government decision to abolish the government agency “has been imposed with no notice and no consultation… I think we can all agree that this is short-sighted and potentially very damaging, especially as there is at present no roadmap setting out where the UK Film Council’s responsibilities and funding will be placed in the future.”
The government intends to close the organisation completely down with its assets and its remaining operations transferred out by April 2012. The Conservatives have underlined their commitment to £15 million a year of lottery-funded film. The tax credit is also to be retained – at least for now. The question going forward is who will control that money pot. UKFC will be working with Culture Department officials over the summer on transferring power and assets.
Tim Bevan, chairman of the UKFC, also blasted today’s news calling it “a bad decision”. He said: “People will rightly look back on today’s announcement and say it was a big mistake, driven by short-term thinking and political expediency. British film, which is one of the UK’s more successful growth industries, deserves better.”
Today’s announcement comes as 55 other culture department bodies are set to be merged, abolished or streamlined as part of the government’s cost-cutting drive. Department For Culture, Media and Sport secretary Jeremy Hunt gave an interview to the Independent newspaper over the weekend, apparently softening people up for today’s announcement. He warned that no area of his department’s activity was immune from cuts – including the BBC and the Olympics. The culture department, which funds British film to the tune of £26 million each year, was preparing for savage cuts. The Department For Culture, Media and Sport faces having its budget slashed by 25% – or even higher – over the next four years. Back in June, UKFC told me it was drawing up plans for what were 20% cuts in grant-in-aid expenditure might look like over three years. Now that looked optimistic. Final government department budgets will be set in the October 20th spending review.
It’s all part of the kill-or-cure Budget unveiled by the Conservatives, determined to get the UK’s debt-load down before Britain implodes like Greece or Iceland. The BBC has also lost out. Chancellor George Osborne confirmed that a tax on landline phones, proposed by Labour, to fund national broadband access, will not now happen. Instead, cash will be taken out of money Auntie had set aside to help digital TV switchover.
Personally, I think these budget cuts are a Trojan horse for the Conservatives’ political agenda, which has always been to reduce Big Government. Prime Minister David Cameron has long wanted to rein in the state, which currently spends 43% of UK national income. But he knew he couldn’t get rid of all these government jobs when these are the very people whose votes he needs to be re-elected. Now the Tories can just shrug and call everything they do “unavoidable.”
Back in May, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport was ordered to make £88 million of emergency savings as part of Osborne’s plans for £6.2 billion of cuts for 2010/2011. The DCMS and bodies such as the Film Council were told to find savings of 3% out of this year’s budget. As a result, DCMS scrapped the BFI National Film Centre, leaving the BFI to suck up 50% of all arts savings.
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As a independent film maker in the UK I am happy that this has happened. The UK film council were like a cartel only giving money out to people they already knew.
You dont need the UK Film Council – All you need is a panel of film makers meeting once a month and hearing pitches from various filmmakers. The layers of failed film making bureaucrats hindered rather than helped film production in the UK.
Of course — there’s always going to be the disgruntled filmmaker who was turned down who is mad enough to think this is a good thing. (I notice you’re the first comment to pop up on Screen’s article too). If you can get over your own little wounded ego, then I think you should join in defending our industry, as otherwise I don’t think there is going to be any money for your monthly panel to distribute.
Tracey: maybe yr props dint get comished becuz of yr writin’ not cuza hoo yu no?
Of course, it would be a lovely world when a panel of film makers meets up to hear pitches – oh, sorry, make that a panel of film makers with millions of pounds to spend on inward investment.
For its flaws, it was an organ for an important industry – limited in its scope but at least something.
Without the UKFC, it’s going to be even more competitive to get funding, which means it’s even MORE likely now that only projects with a producer/writer track record will ever get funded. So if you had trouble getting money under the old system, it’s going to be even harder now.
Lizzie – I agree wholeheartedly with that. Where are filmmakers going to go for development or production money? Where do they begin?
I agree, this is a time for celebration amongst UK Indie Filmmakers. A toast to Schadenfreude!
As cliquish as the UKFC was, it was probably surpassed by the (also now fortunately defunct) Scottish Screen.
If they didn’t know you, if your face didn’t fit, if you weren’t already successful, you had more chance of getting lottery funding by spending a pound and buying a lottery ticket, than by talking UKFC or the SS.
Most films in the UK were made DESPITE them, not because of them. Again, especially with Scottish Screen who had a long, long track record of failed movies under their belt.
There’s a huge amount of talent in the UK that has never been developed as a direct result of Scottish Screen and the UKFC. They are an epic failure, and their demise is well-deserved and long overdue.
Good riddance! I wish their former employees all the suffering that they’ve caused to Indie Filmmakers in the UK for over a decade.
Party Time!
This is fantastic news. Time for the UKFC staff to suffer at the coalface like every indie UK filmmaker. The UKFC has been a complete disaster. Well done to the Conservatives for shutting the gravy train down.
Well said Dave!! I agree. You summed it up perfectly when you said that “films are made DESPITE them not because of them”.
Every indie producer / director that i have met in my 6 years of film making has always rolled their eyes when the film council was mentioned. Now the albatross of the UFC has gone, the UK film industry now has fighting chance to stay alive – As we can get a more direct route to the film funding (thats not been cut!) without the UFC taking out a big chunk and spending it on jollys for their staff to Cannes!
absolutely.
The countless times I saw those boring home counties poseurs sipping their Pinot Grigio in Cannes, the AFM or Berlin, who would only try to wedge any/all originality out of your project by trying to ape american success stories – it would make me wince. As someone who was fortunate enough to earn their crust on their own in the UK film and tv business – before getting bored with the endless self-defeating shenanigans and finally hitting LA – it always seemed odd to me how the FC was allowed to operate with such impunity, and yet for such a tiny sliver of the community.
Did producer Matthew Vaughn seek money from the FC for Lock, Stock? Did Andrew McDonald for ‘Trainspotting’ – let alone for Shallow Grave? Hell no. Why? They couldn’t be bothered to deal with those morons spouting their drivel like “it isn’t commercial enough’..or “I’m almost thinking we should set it on a council estate..and make the cast…uglier…you know..like REAL people…” f’in ‘ell.
Not that it affected me, but – confession time – the seemingly arbitrary choices the FC made weren’t arbitrary at all once you scratched the surface: home counties kids swanning about Cannes and Berlin with a fag in one hand and a glass in the other, doling tax payer cash to other home counties kids. Pure and simple. It sounds mean, but usually – like most assistants swanning about the agencies in London in their ugh boots – to ‘play movie maker ’cause getting a ‘proper job’ didn’t suit them. And failing miserably at it for the most part – yet claiming ownership on projects that would have most assuredly done better had they not fallen prey to those last few nickels from the FC for completion.
A near-total waste of money they were, and we’re so much better off without them. We need something. But the FC wasn’t it.
No resources you say? Get resourceful then! Or a 5D and get shooting. Make your next film on film. But get shooting.
The Gov’t should certainly support the industry like every other film-producing country, but to avoid the rampant (and sadly class-based) nepotism the FC was infamous for, we could tear another page from folks like our Canadian friends, whereby projects could instead be funded like this:
1) scripts and packages are sent naked to a panel who have no idea who is behind or wrote what they are assessing. Simple.
2) If it sucks, it goes out the window.
3) If i’s good, it proceeds to the next step of evaluation. Like any business. And not based on some nonsensical ‘commercial viability’ some lit grad made up: no.
4) so, like I say, if it’s good – from a terence Davies-esque project to a Matthew Vaughn-type film – it goes to the next hurdle, ie. call the filmmaker or writer in to pitch, see how we can help pump up their vision – er…if they indeed have one – with a continually revolving bi-annually-chosen panel of TRUSTED filmmakers who’s votes are kept confidential – but kept solely on merit rather than nepotism.
What the FC got away with for years, and sadly Tim Bevan didn’t get a chance to rectify it – is the UK film ‘industry’ – like France – should be both treated as a business and as an art.
But if you feel you have a burning idea to make a hit, your passion will do you far greater good than ten FC’s. Just ask the numerous success stories who took Dov Simmen’s courses in the early 90′s (matthew Vaughn, Guy Ritchie, Christopher Nolan to name a few) and who never needed a dime from them to make their films.
Yes, a great gov’t body would be helpful, and is needed. But a sense of entitlement is not helpful. Instead, it’s better to remember that as in every worthwhile pursuit, where there’s a will – and in the case of film a great, rock-solid story and script – there’ a way.
That really is extremely bad news. The UK Film Council has done sterling work over the last few years in making sure funds allocated to UK film-making arrive to support the right productions, a fact most obviously reflected by how many high profile releases we’ve seen with their logo on recently. Whilst the government are saying that the funds will still be there, I can’t believe they’ll be used effectively without the help of an educated body, such as the film council. Very disappointing.
Speechless. We should not allow this to happen. We should call for a petition.
Is that the “royal we?”
As a filmmaker myself in the UK I totally agree with you! They were extremely biased in their choice of who to finance.
how come we’re slap bang in the middle of a huge recession and people are surprised the Govt are making huge cuts?
The bottomless pits of money have dried up… the way we all do business has to change.
Even if the government is making cuts, they could have scaled down the budget rather than abolish the organisation completely; all this abolishing etc looks good at the beggining, until they go full circle and realise they have to invent exactly the same kind of body they abolished in the first place. A good example being the UK railway and tube system, which have in part now been effectively re-nationalised because the private companies that took them over were incompetent.
As a film producer for the past 30 years and having made around 35 theatrical features in many countries around the world I can say without hesitation that the Film Council was a terrible waste of money. Their track record for success has been dismal, their overhead is preposterous, their arrogance in their dealing with film producers and young people has been shocking.
Bon débarras!
As an expat for some time now I have to agree with your opinion on the makeup and practices of what was always going to be another ‘quango’.
This kind of outfit does not appear to exist in any other nation other than Britain. Ireland being a notable exception has recently dismissed it’s (english) chief executive learniing the hard way that pouring money into executive pockets and lifestyles produces very poor results or rather not the desired ones.
Good Luck with all you are doing and keep doing it.
“outfits” in nations other than Britain: Austrian Film Institute, Screen Australia, New Zealand Film Commission, Greek Film Centre, Nederlands Film Instituut, Singapore Film Commission, National Film Development Corporation of India to name but a few …
I agree totally. They are a lot of overpaid, useless little quangocrats who made funding decisions based on gender, race and how much like Ken Loach you could be.
Several members of staff earn more than the Prime Minister – ridiculous!
They should get out and make films in the real world like the rest of us and understand what audiences actually want to see.
They will not be missed and real, talented film makers will always find ways to get their films made.
That’s assuming that something better will take their place.
succinctly put. Bravo.
Typically catty comments from the ‘filmmakers’ who think the UKFC stood in the way of their stella directorial careers because they dished out money to their mates.
The truth is that while the UKFC could have done with an overhaul, the idea that its abolition is a good thing for UK Film is a joke. Does anyone think they’ll be more money available? Or that the decision making will be better? Was the UKFC’s decision making really so bad (if the ‘filmmakers’ discount their own efforts?) No, no and no.
Thatcher thought artistes should suffer for their art… Sp does Cameron.
Agree that the UKFC funding process has become something of a closed shop and “money for the boys” in recent years, but it is undeniable the benefit the UKFC has given to UK film since it launched. For one of the UK’s most lucrative export industries, employing over 75,000 people, not to have an official body championing it, its pretty shocking. Lets hope the BFI pick up where the UKFC left off. What about a mixture of BFI and BAFTA to move forward?
Bye Bye you pigs at a trough bureaucrats who decided that they were talent spotters who made nothing of any significance to anyone…. ever….. Fish Tank? Cheri? Sex & Drugs & Rock and Roll? Are you kidding me? They actually paid people to pick those pieces of s**t? You’re fired now!!!!
FISH TANK is genius.
You are fired. Not them. You, Alexio.
Yea! More power for the jerks in Hollywood.
Thanks, guys!!
Hollywood Jerk – Get your chequebook out – the Brits are coming!!
Please let none us be simple minded about this. If it were as simple as handing out lumps of cash to favoured filmmakers then few would grieve this ridiculous decision. Over the past ten years, the UKFC has successfully and intelligently given strategic leadership and support to an industry undergoing savage commercial, cultural and technological change. Clearly Jeremy Hunt has not properly considered the intricate network of support that the UKFC has carefully built, without which this country’s filmmakers will have no way to harvest the fruits of a worldwide growing demand for filmed entertainment. In one fell ill considered swoop he has sacrificed a valuable and efficient agency to do little more than please the mandarins of the Treasury. A disastrous day for Britain, and a disastrous day for ALL filmmakers.
“UKFC has successfully and intelligently given strategic leadership and support to an industry undergoing savage commercial, cultural and technological change”
No it hasn’t. Not at all.
I wish you were right, i really do. The truth is it was an expensive, bloated arm of the last government and did very little in effective support and leadership of the ‘industry’.
Dan, I have to presume that you are sincere in making your comments, but I can hand on heart assure you that the UKFC was never an arm of Government, neither is it bloated. It was set up by the Labour government as an independent and strategic body designed to provide a coherent trackway between the industry (in all its manifestations) and government.It was to be the means by which government communicated with the industry, in both directions. Of course, in recent years, cutbacks have been expected, especially as the Olympics started to draw away grant-in-aid and lottery funding. Initially these were expected to be 25% across the board, then 40% and then 50%, all of which the Film Council, and the wider industry that depends on the council, were absolutely ready to take on. The seemingly spontaneous and sudden decision to abolish the council leaves the British film production industry, independent cinemas, inward investment programs, first light movies, audience development initiatives, education and training programs, regional and national screen agencies and many more activities that are largely unseen, in a state of confusion and uncertainty. All this at a time when film is globally undergoing a massive paradigm shift. It is a supremely ill considered act of political expediency, and will yet be regretted by many more people than may realise it at the moment.
Dan – I take it that you work for the film council! Look around mate, the majority of the indie film producers are gald you have gone! Now take a step back, pack up your desk, slither out the door and go and watch yoru organisation greatest hit – “Sex Lives of the Potato Men” and never bother us REAL film makers again!
Oops! I meant to target my post at Iain!! {the one just above you)(sorry Dan!!)
Please protest against this unbearably short-sighted decision by signing the petition to save the UKFC!
I have run a production company since 2004, and the UK Film Council have never really been of any help.
However, regardless of whether they have been able to help numerous small companies like mine or not, I must admit that it is important that we have a body such as the UKFC which is open to the masses and not just benefiting the big production companies.
So what now?
Clearly the UKFC generated passion for and against.
However the over arching and most worrying thing in all this is the clear fact that this Government are determined to slash and burn their way through every department with little or no regard to the value that department bought or the potential consequences to the economy and jobs front in the Uk that those departments supported.
I am in favour of this move.
The age when every little interest group could demand millions of pounds for their niche quango is over.
The UKFC was an expensive jolly created by Labour. We have to find cost savings somewhere. We cannot continue “spend spend spend”.
Excellent! The government has no business spending taxpayer money on movies. The “right” movies, you say? Hah. Who is the government to decide what is or is not a “deserving” movie, especially when many movies trample on various citizens’ moral, ethical, or religious sensibilities? Now maybe the U.S. can get rid of the equally obnoxious National Endowment for the Arts, the existence of which is also completely absent from our Constitution.
Exactly!
Why have films like “Bronson,” “In the Loop,” and “Fish Tank” when there are literally dozen of “Cats vs. Dogs” sequels left to be made?
Glad to see there’s at least one sensible person left who understands what people really want.
So a lot of people’s comments on here are so negative because their films never made the cut for UKFC – instead of being happy that an entire department was shut down. Maybe you should try helping your country/ industry, and next time — Make a film that meets the requirements! If u didn’t get money that just means you weren’t a very good producer and your project was a waste of money. Get real!
Sunset Blvd your comments prove that you know zero about the UKFC. If only their funding critera was based on how good or commercial a project was! Instead it was about government directives on region, race, gender etc. The ideal UKFC project was one about an unemployed gay Muslim from Glasgow who falls in love with a white Geordie while struggling with identity issues and post colonial pressure living in racist Britain. Or something equally intertesting.
Baron – We all know you are wrong. What was your film that got turned down? Huh?
Actually no, lots of tacky rom-coms made it through, perhaps it reflects a paucity of ideas amongst UK film makers?
No one here has heard about the film investor who suggested that the slate he was investing in should only make good films and skip all the bad ones.
That’s totally untrue.
The fact of the matter, is that it is much easier to get private funding for a movie in the UK if you are not mates with someone in the UKFC. They looked after themselves and their mates exclusively.
I’ve produced indie movies with private money with some success. But I’ve never had a single bit of help from those who are publicly employed to help. If anything, they have hindered.
I am overjoyed to seem them all fired. They have deserved this for a very long time.
Sunset – I agree with you. However complicated the UKFC was in all its tasks, and, given its remit to be forward thinking (diverse) and local (UK life today, not just period dramas), it did what it could. (It wasn’t Pixar, of course.) The people who received money liked it. Those who didn’t, don’t. I applaud anyone who understands how hard it is to give out money for filmmaking generally, especially in this climate.
How hard is it to help a nation AND make successful films consistently? VERY.
So many of the posters here seem to be just like the film investor who wondered, “Why don’t we just make good films and not make the bad ones?”
It is sad to see a department shut down without any hint that anything will take its place, but if anyone can do better, go and do it. Soon please.
I am laughing, and will be for some time.
They did very little right, and cost a fortune to do it.
There are ways for a government to help film-makers (see NZ, Denmark) but this was not it.
To quote its eloquent chairman: ‘F*ck off.’
The summary execution of the UKFC was utterly predictable. If ever there were an example of a New Labour quango out-of-control and running amok it was the UKFC. The institutional arrogance and hubris were breathtaking. With gigantic salaries scaled to their egos, the UKFC proceeded as if it were a cypher for the whole industry or as if it were a major US studio. All sense of public service had long been extinguished by its never-ending stream of self-regarding propaganda feeding a preposterous sense of its own self-importance. A CEO with a press office larger than the UK film commission was always going to come a cropper with the earnest ciivl servants at the DCMS. That it lasted for so long is a New Labour disgrace.
Champagne corks are bouncing off the buildings in Soho Square, Wardour Street is erupting in a carnival-like frenzy. It is difficult to overstate the extent of the UKFC’s unpopularity. Sadly the real victim is of course the embattled UK film business. Our anger is directed at ourselves in the knowledge that our sustained failure to speak out inhibited much needed reform and allowed John Woodward to hang onto his gravy train for more than a decade. The bitter irony is that it was a leaked report by BSAC (suppressed by the UKFC earlier this year) which finally told the politicians the sorry tale of a quango gorging on lottery funding to feed its own highly developed appetites. 24% of lottery monies were used to feed itself against a national average of 4 – 5%. Enough is enough!
Right on!
Very eloquently put. I couldn’t agree more.
Agree, agree, agree!
The UKFC will not be missed.
I think those who are attributing the many comments written in obvious dislike of the UKFC to sour grapes are really missing the point.
I am a filmmaker in the UK and have received money from the UKFC for various projects at various stages over the years they’ve existed, but these projects have invariably been those attached to cronies of UKFC-ites.
They are notorious within the industry for being uninterested in the quality of a project, dazzled by big names (surely the people that don’t need the help!) and unwilling to do an honest day’s work.
While it is worrying that funding for film is being lost, the UKFC was a fairly ineffective body that tended to dish out money to those that would have been comfortably able to find financing elsewhere.
Of course the UKFC is better than nothing, but only just.
But fingers crossed though that what happens now is not that the funding goes but just the organisation that administered it. We need a fresh team with the right outlook to take the funding on – perhaps at the BFI? It does look like we’re headed that way, and I’m all for it. Tomorrow for example, there’s a low budget filmmaking all-day event at the BFI, they have the right idea.
The UKFC gave £750K towards Sex Lives of the Potato Men – an execrable film with little cultural value. It was so bad, actor Mackenzie Crook (Pirates of the Caribbean, The Office) was still trying to live it down years later.
The UKFC’s view of British culture was narrow – costume dramas, working class angst, middle class angst. The worst thing about this announcement is that people have lost jobs. That said, there must be better and more effective ways of supporting filmmakers in Britain. Maybe we should use our creativity to find out how.
There was talk last year amongst film marketers that the icon of the UKFC as seen on a film indicated worthiness but not success – or that it met with diversity or regional requirements without being globally competitive. (Let’s just forget the Oscar nommed In The Loop, shall we?) Yes, the old guard had a look in in the UKFC, but so did new people and new ideas. As a body, it couldn’t afford to accommodate everyone. Now, unless the report of it being disbanded is a rumour and the alliance backtracks, they won’t be able to accommodate anyone. Film makers will be back seeking money elsewhere, which means it will be even harder to keep the UK film industry viable – which it has done fairly well considering it doesn’t have a domestic market.
There is a lot of ignorance in the comments here. Perhaps some people should learn to keep quiet if they have nothing useful to say.
Firstly, the UKFC was funded by the lottery as well as tax, and made £5 at the box office for every £1 spent – why scrap something beneficial to the economy? Also, despite controversy over which films were GIVEN money (this will make the market even more competitive for funding, with the most commercial projects winning), the UKFC also funded local screen agencies (anyone starting out will face greater competition), funded Skillset to provide training for anyone wishing to move up the career ladder, and funded support for showing foreign cinema (such as A Prophet, Broken Embraces, Let the Right One In, The Curse of the Golden Flower, Volver and Tell No-One). Bearing this in mind, this is a terrible day for not just filmmakers but film lovers in the UK. It will result in more competition for funds and more Hollywood dominance of the industry and in our cinemas. Our government and Jeremy *unt clearly hates culture, and so do the morons who support them.
“funded Skillset to provide training for anyone wishing to move up the career ladder”
I don’t think “anyone” means what you think it means. Skillset is, in theory, great. But as with everything else the UKFC touched, those places only went to those with connections. It was very much NOT open to “anyone”.
This £5 for every £1 figure is a silly PR fudge. The films made that money, not the Film Council. I’m glad I no longer have to listen to drivel about how many people ‘they’ gave jobs to or how much money ‘they’ made the UK economy. UK film improved during their tenure – I don’t deny that – but what else happened during that time? Lottery finance.
The lottery funding to support films remains. What is gone is an obnoxious quango that held the purse strings, claimed all success in the UK film industry was down to them, even as they withheld funding and their seal of approval from countless talented new filmmakers and gave jobs at every level to proven incompetents, while spending insane amounts of money on their own existence.
Whatever replaces them should be a small national body for key industry and government liaison and a vast increase in the importance and funding for the regional agencies. And no I don’t work for a regional agency.
Agreed. The funding is locked in so though there may be a short gap while the reorganisation/redistribution of responsibilities takes place the only thing we are really losing is the overpaid and overconfident management. Hopefully what will replace the UKFC will be a leaner operation with a more appropriate attitude/aptitude.
I’m not a producer but I’ve seen first hand how narrow-minded the mentality of the Film Council can be. It’s no secret that the “chosen few” filmakers received the bulk of the funds. Some earlier posts have alluded to this. Anyone suggesting otherwise is clearly deluded. Again it’s no secret that the allocation of the funds at its disposal and the strategy (or lack thereof) behind it was always in a constant state of flux.
Seems obvious that the UK film industry needs representation – the real question is whether there will be an over-reaction on the part of the government. Will the BFI get a modestly sized division to handle the tax credit tests and disbursement of production/development/P&A funds? Will the funding be retained at its current levels.
It doesn’t take a genius to realise that the UKFC is a bloated organisation hampered by inefficiency and blatant favouritism. 75 people responsible for a 15m fund that gives the majority of its money to 3 to 4 established filmamkers?? Come on now…
As I sadi before, the vast majority of people recognise a need for an industry association and/or funding body. Just not the way it was set up under UKFC.