Doc/Fest Blog
The UKFC Closing
By Charlie Phillips 28 July, 2010
As you have no doubt heard if you go anywhere near film news, the UK Film Council is to be shot in the back of the head. A gradual phase-out of the UKFC starts now, ending around April 2012, after which we'll see wither a fade to total black, or (if we're lucky, and we probably won't be) a sudden switch to glorious technicolor.
There's no news of what will replace it, other than vague news that the BFI will take on some functions, and that lottery funding will remain, as will many of the current things that the UKFC does now. So nothing will change they say, it's only that the UKFC won't be running the shop. Woolworths is closing, but you'll still be able to buy quality buttons and ironing boards in other shops.
Except that it won't work like this. The Coalition will clearly strip many of the UKFC's functions to nothingness, and what it does distribute to other bodies will be in tiny portions and demand a market benefit. How do we know? Because that's what they're doing with everything else. If it's not serving consumer choice and market demand, be it 'Free' Schools, GP Surgeries or Film production, then it's clearly of no use to the Big Society. So if you think that the UKFC was obsessed with commercial output, then wait til you see Free Production Companies, which guarantee to make product that raises big profit and give the mainstream of film consumers what they demand. It'll be Bend it Like Beckham in the Multiplex or nothing round these parts,
Melodramatic? I don't think so. Having digested lots of reaction in the last 48 hours, of which this, that, and (wider context) here, are good, I'm increasingly annoyed, and not just at Jeremy Hunt's unilateral decision-making. Also at some of the views given in platforms like Shooting People's poll of indie filmmakers, where many reactions are of the "well they didn't give me money, so good riddance" school. A view that some large trade organisations and filmmakers have also taken - that the UKFC should be viewed entirely in terms of which films it funded and which it didn't.
This is missing the point. I too could moan that they didn't support some of my heroes like Andrew Kotting, that they ignored most documentary, that they were dismissive of anything that touched the concept of 'art', that they were hard to lobby, and had their favourites, that they were slow to embrace cross-media, that they were obsessed with piracy, and that they squandered the opportunity of the Digital Screen Network to support UK films.
But they were the devil that we knew, and through Skillset and less heralded production schemes like their Shorts programmes, they supported training and talent development that really did help newer and lower-budget talent to get on the ladder. They were vital for regional production through their support of the regional screen agencies. This obsession that they were London-centric is very strange, given the autonomy that the RSAs had to create their own development, production and training projects. Plus of course, they supported festivals like us, allowing the industry to meet and work together.
And their new 3-year plan was great, with the promise of the Innovation Fund, which could have kickstarted a new generation of interactive and online projects to make the UK the top of the tree for film that used new technology. Plus they supported small cinemas against the force of the multiplex.
So we can talk forever about which films they should have funded, and indeed, soon we'll have nothing else to discuss. But the real tragedy here is what the closure will do for training, for the regions and for festivals, all of which are areas that will suffer massively. We'll see big problems in the next generation of filmmakers, we'll see even more London-centrism, and we'll see a large drop-off of potential filmmakers from outside the white middle-classes. Reductionist, yes, but it's predictable and it's happening very soon unless we do something.
The UKFC is imperfect, but it's the best that we can have and it's something that we can gripe about and lobby and change, with the alternative being absolutely nothing. It's so true that as Mike Figgis et al say on the SP poll comments we all need to do our independent thing and sort ourselves out and not rely on public subsidy. We could do some amazing things with grassroots devolved regional film institutions. I am a massive advocate of that too and we should.
But that's not instead of the UKFC, which even if we independent digital free spirits can claim we don't need (though we do), many many less fortunate people do, in the regions, on lower incomes, starting out, and making non-commercial and artier projects. Like documentaries, you say? Yes. You don't know what you've got til it's gone.