Top industry journal Screen International’s June issue, entitled ‘The Future of Exhibition’, looked at how developments in technology: digital expansion, 3D, and alternative content: opera, theatre, sport, were providing both challenges and opportunities for the sector.
Then in July news hit that the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, intended to axe the UK Film Council and everything went wobbly. Despite pledging support for the film industry, if not the Film Council, little if anything has been said about exhibition. Lottery funding is set to increase DCMS tells us, but funding for what exactly? Reactions from the production side of the industry have stolen headlines, naturally so with names like Clint Eastwood voicing their concerns. But what about those exhibiting film? The Cinema Exhibitors’ Association has made a brief statement, but it wasn’t until the British Federation of Film Societies’ statement on 18 Aug that anyone dared mention impact on audiences and specialised film.
Of course investing in UK film production is vital to help grow our industry and develop talent, but where are these independent, low budget films seen? More often than not it won’t be Odeon or Vue cinemas showing Steve McQueen, or Andrea Arnold, or Mike Leigh’s new work on first run; it’ll be the small independent cinemas across the country, or it’ll be festivals showing work you can’t see anywhere else. Surely investing in UK independent exhibition is as important as investing in UK independent film. (Or given there’s a whole world outside Hollywood making films which commercial operators won’t touch, even more important?)
And it’s not just about screening film: investing in film education is the cornerstone of building audiences. What use is investing in independent film production if there are no audiences interested in seeing them? National projects like Film Club and Find Your Talent, as well as local projects run by independent cinemas, have encouraged thousands of young people to explore and engage with cinema they may never have seen otherwise.
In 2009/10 Vision+Media had approx. £200k to spend on film exhibition, education and moving image archive in the region. That investment, which went into cinemas, film festivals, education, archives, exhibitors’ training and partnership events, enabled well over 220,000 people in the North West to see specialised film. At less than 90p subsidy per view - that’s a fantastic return by anyone’s standards.
So I would urge you to join me in supporting the BFFS’s call to DCMS to “publicly commit to safeguarding the investment in film exhibition”. As they put it so eloquently I’ll leave the last word to them: “Whilst [film exhibition] may be less glamorous than the UK Film Council’s film production remit, it is the vital component that completes the circle, adding value to communities and to the educational and cultural sectors by enabling films to be seen and appreciated by audiences across the UK."
www.cinemauk.org.uk/mediacentre/_101/
www.bffs.org.uk/
*image taken by Jason Lock at the North West Film Archive film screening at Burnley Mechanics*