BFI (British Film Institute)

[Props55]

Question: Does BFI sell directly to the public in the manner of MoC? If so there are quite a few titles I've been putting off getting and if it would benefit them more directly then so much the better.

[swo17]

Yes, but the prices are usually pretty steep. Though it's also the best place to buy, for instance, Re:Voir DVDs.

[zedz]

They have a really great shop if you're not looking for bargains. I often look up their site just to see what I should be ordering much cheaper elsewhere.

They do have occasional special deals or exclusives (e.g. the MisInformation disc - now available through normal channels), but I can't recall their prices for BFI discs ever coming close to the standard Amazon bargains.

[AidanKing]

The economy's in a bad shape. It was destroyed by the bankers but history has been rewritten by the right so that the blame is now solely on the welfare state. A conservative, neo-liberal government has used this as an excuse to push forward their agenda and slash public services, all the time telling the public that it's for their own good.

Spot on! And the right, without having actually won the last election, has gone a long way to almost completely demolishing the welfare state in the space of only three years. Just think what Labour could have done if it had decided to use its massive majority in 1997 in a progressive way.

[MichaelB]

Just think what Labour could have done if it had decided to use its massive majority in 1997 in a progressive way.

Tell me about it. And indeed if Blair had grasped the nettle of welfare reform when he had the mandate - because there's no doubt that such reforms have to be implemented (simple demographics mean that the present system is completely unsustainable in the long term), but they're much more painful a decade down the line. Especially since I imagine Labour would have been considerably more conscientious about building in safeguards to protect the truly vulnerable.

[AidanKing]

I'm not sure the present system is completely unsustainable, but sustaining it would require a commitment to a high level of taxation, which would have to be borne fairly by the rich. I think the main problem with organising this is that taxing rich individuals and companies would have to be done on an international basis because of the effects of globalisation. There's also the problem that the media have convinced most people that taxation is inherently bad, rather than something required by societies in general, unless we collectively decide we don't want education, hospitals, transport, justice system etc.

With regard to the BFI (and arts funding in general), there's also the problem that the amounts being cut sound like a lot, and I think people find it very difficult to comprehend that it's such a tiny proportion of government expenditure: when we only live seventy to ninety years on average, it makes it difficult for us to really comprehend large numbers.

I despair at the relative costs of arts funding and Trident, for example, but it's so hard to convince people that we don't need nuclear missiles, even though the arts funding is (hopefully) the only one out of the two that's actually going to be used.

[antnield]

BFI DVD/Blu-ray Poll.

(6,500 voted for their favourite BFI releases.)

[antnield]

As part of the Gothic season, BFI Publishing are adding four titles to the BFI Film Classics range and re-printing another four (some with added material). Details and artwork.

[MichaelB]

Nick James's blistering Sight & Sound editorial about the government's 10% grant cut and its potential impact on the BFI's activities has just been published online.

[bdlover]

if Blair had grasped the nettle of welfare reform when he had the mandate - because there's no doubt that such reforms have to be implemented (simple demographics mean that the present system is completely unsustainable in the long term), but they're much more painful a decade down the line.

This is the kind of neo-liberal rhetoric Rossy is talking about. If there is one area of the welfare state that needs looking at it's pension reform, this being the area all the main parties are too afraid to approach. Otherwise, it is taxation systems that need to be reformed so that the 0.01% actually pay their taxes like everyone else. If the 'talent' want to go and live in Russia, so be it.

[MichaelB]

I was very much including pension reform in my comment. The combination of inexorable demographic changes, Gordon Brown raiding pension funds and our dangerous reliance on a housing bubble to support us in our old age (tacitly encouraged by every government over the last three decades or so) is a terrifyingly toxic combination, but all the solutions are politically petrifying.

[perkizitore]

How much are the top BFI people are paid? I think they should cut paychecks over £100K instead of firing low level employees or hiking up ticket prices by 33% (like they did after the first cuts hit them).

[Kauno]

Why do people call the UK a welfare state when it is not?

[MichaelB]

How much are the top BFI people are paid? I think they should cut paychecks over £100K

BFI Director Amanda Nevill gets around £140K, which I believe has been frozen since 2008. That's a fair bit less than the market rate for the director of a cultural institution of that size and influence - by way of comparison, the Tate's Nicholas Serota gets £165K and the British Museum's Neil MacGregor gets £180K. (Those figures are from 2010, but probably haven't risen significantly in the current climate).

As for "cutting paychecks over £100K", quite aside from the legal ramifications (contracts are contracts), it would be a mere drop in the ocean. As far as I can see, just three current BFI staff earn £100K+ salaries.

instead of firing low level employees or hiking up ticket prices by 33% (like they did after the first cuts hit them).

You're creating a very misleading impression of how they handled the 2011/12 redundancies. In fact, they affected staff all the way up to (and including) executive level, and of the list of 46 total redundancies, twenty were earning over £50K and just eighteen were on less than £25K (the median BFI salary is about £27K). It's also worth adding that 31 of those redundancies were voluntary (I was one of them).

You can easily check these figures yourself - the BFI publishes its annual reports online (this is a PDF of the most recent one).

[colinr0380]

I was very much including pension reform in my comment. The combination of inexorable demographic changes, Gordon Brown raiding pension funds and our dangerous reliance on a housing bubble to support us in our old age (tacitly encouraged by every government over the last three decades or so) is a terrifyingly toxic combination, but all the solutions are politically petrifying.

And a housing bubble is still currently being explicitly supported by this (and all foreseeable) governments. Which in combination with the recent statement by the Bank of England that interest rates are likely going to stay at record lows for perhaps a further three years is absolutely staggering. Of course Gordon Brown was the worst for this but it seems that no one in government has a grasp on economics any more (or, as you say, are scared of the consequences of interest rates going up even slightly, causing major mortgage defaults, with their only solution being to get more people into debt).

[peerpee]

Nick James's blistering Sight & Sound editorial about the government's 10% grant cut and its potential impact on the BFI's activities has just been published online.

Nick James spells out in capitals that the BFI Lottery Funds cannot be rechannelled for other BFI purposes but fails to question why this cannot change. It would seem the most sensible and easy to administer solution to rechannel this gigantic trough of dough, particularly as the cuts are being requested by the DCMS – presumably the same folk preventing Lottery Funds from being rechannelled?

The 10% cuts have shone a light on this major contradiction at the heart of the BFI and perhaps part of the reason for the confused deafening silence from elsewhere?

I've been casually monitoring the Lottery Fund awards for months now and I'm finding it *really* difficult to work out the value or purpose of many big non-repayable awards granted to established, enormous global companies.

i.) £150,000.00 to Fox for CHARIOTS OF FIRE in early 2012. I'm guessing, but presumably Fox couldn't be arsed dusting it off for the Olympics, so Lottery money was handed to Rupert Murdoch's company in order that a few cinemas could show the film in Olympic year. It's more than worrying that any non-repayable award to Fox at all was deemed acceptable, regardless of whether this was a "special circumstance" or not. For a little perspective, £150,000.00 is more than Amanda Nevill earns in a year, and the average price of a house in the North West of England.

ii.) Many hundreds of thousands of pounds to Momentum Pictures for multiple films (Momentum were subsequently bought by eOne (a Canadian based, Koch-owned mega-independent). One large BFI award was made a week before the sale.) One might clutch at straws and argue "who's to know who might get bought?", but the more important point is that 'this keeps happening' and it's not really a good outcome for the grant if it does, is it? The money is flying out of the country with negligible value for money. Better terms and conditions need to be implemented to guarantee value for UK folk whose money this is.

iii.) Many hundreds of thousands to Curzon AE for multiple films. Including, last month, a headscratchingly enormous £150,000.00 "New Models" award to Curzon's WHAT MAISIE KNEW (why £150,000.00? Why not £43,500, or £22,050?). Is there any record of how this money is spent? Last year Curzon sold a substantial equity holding to the mysterious Tabatznik Family Trust whose wealth comes from a generic pharmaceutical empire, and appear to based in South Africa. A company about to ditch its heritage (discontinuing the Artificial Eye brand), fattened up, and, I'd wager, sold to a large global corporation.

I've only been amateurishly scratching around in my spare time, but I get the sense I could uncover a lot more examples if I did more indepth research.

It's as if no-one understands the implications of globalisation on the film industry. Much of this lottery money is being given an express ticket out of the UK. The reality is, the film industry is undergoing more upheaval than it has ever previously known. Companies that probably need to go out of business or at least *adapt* in order to survive are being artificially propped up by handouts (from the people of the UK) because... I don't know, the industry has persuaded the DCMS that they need help? No doubt many parts of the film industry need specific, specialist help, but why is so much money being granted at a time of enforced austerity when the rewards mentioned above are so shockingly nebulous?

Where were the DCMS when it came to supporting record labels? Or publishing houses. Non-existent. What happened without any support? Many went to the wall, but these industries adapted quickly and have changed almost completely in the last decade.

---

In these three examples above one has to question why massive non-repayable grants are being given to global corporations with roots outside the UK. What criteria has been used to judge these awards? Where is the value to the UK? Who is ascertaining the effectiveness of the grants over time?

The BFI Lottery Fund does great good giving out much needed funds to small projects but in just these 3 examples above we have a couple of million pounds that could reasonably be described as having been thrown away – squandered. It's clear that this £2m would have been better spent on core BFI functions, and in this instance, could have gone a long way to cover the deficit they are now being asked to suffer.

Who came up with the rules of the UKFC / BFI Lottery Fund? Have they been altered or amended over time? What does it take for them to be altered or fine-tuned? It would seem that the DCMS could fix this very easily if it was pointed out how much money is being shat out of the country with no demonstrable returns via the BFI Lottery Film Fund.

Or do I have it all wrong?

[MichaelB]

As I understand the system, Lottery grants are essentially one-offs backing specific projects, and they can't be used as a substitute for continuous funding like an annual and ongoing government grant. The BFI has certainly successfully applied for Lottery funds for individual projects on a great many occasions - speaking from direct personal experience, the Lottery's New Opportunities Fund backed the development and launch of Screenonline, but once that target had been reached the BFI (or somebody else) was required to take over.

Certainly, you can guarantee that your questions will have been asked many, many times within the BFI itself and between the BFI and its DCMS paymasters - it has an entire fundraising department whose job is to look for opportunities like this, and who will be more than familiar of every dot and comma of the various bits of Lottery-related legislation over the years. And it's very safe to say that if there was any legal way of diverting Lottery funds towards the upkeep of, say, the BFI National Archive (the most expensive and least profit-making part of the BFI's activities), they'd have worked out a formula years ago. So I'm guessing that a change in the law would be required - and that would open a huge can of worms, since other cultural organisations would obviously be equally keen to divert Lottery funds to their day-to-day operations.

I can't comment on the grants that the former UKFC staffers at the BFI have been issuing, because I left the week before they arrived, and so don't know anyone there and haven't picked up any gossip. But this whole practice of subsidising not just foreigners but well-heeled foreigners is a very depressing tendency that goes back many decades - in fact, it's happened pretty much every time the government has got itself involved in film funding. Alexander Walker used to chronicle this with dogged obsessiveness - his weekly Evening Standard column sometimes bore a strong resemblance to your post, and he'd regularly get into fights with people over it (I remember Terry Gilliam being very miffed when Walker slammed the funding of one of his projects on the grounds that Gilliam was American: technically true, but he'd been a full-time UK resident for decades and his contribution to the British film industry was clearly considerable), but since Walker died a decade ago I don't think anyone has picked up that particular baton - so go right ahead!

[AidanKing]

Many hundreds of thousands to Curzon AE for multiple films. Including, last month, a headscratchingly enormous £150,000.00 "New Models" award to Curzon's WHAT MAISIE KNEW (why £150,000.00? Why not £43,500, or £22,050?). Is there any record of how this money is spent? Last year Curzon sold a substantial equity holding to the mysterious Tabatznik Family Trust whose wealth comes from a generic pharmaceutical empire, and appear to based in South Africa. A company about to ditch its heritage (discontinuing the Artificial Eye brand), fattened up, and, I'd wager, sold to a large global corporation.

I agree that there does need to be a lot more clarity about the criteria used to support distribution. Shouldn't a film like What Maisie Knew (and presumably all the Momentum releases) be able to support itself on cinema release? Are more difficult films in need of help with distribution (like In the Fog, The Turin Horse and The Wall) being supported?

[antnield]

Trailer for The Epic of Everest, the latest restoration project from the BFI National Archive.

In cinemas October 18th (with a Blu-ray/DVD to follow in 2014, no doubt).

[swo17]

Does anyone know where one can purchase replacement plastic cases for the 3-disc dual format releases that BFI and MoC put out (e.g. Bill Douglas trilogy, Ugetsu)? Or even just the swing trays that hold two of the discs?

[chatterjees]

Does anyone know where one can purchase replacement plastic cases for the 3-disc dual format releases that BFI and MoC put out (e.g. Bill Douglas trilogy, Ugetsu)? Or even just the swing trays that hold two of the discs?

I needed two cases (a single disc and a 3-discs one), but couldn't find any site selling them. As they were for two Arrow releases, I contacted them and they sent me two recently. So, I guess contacting BFI or MoC would be your best bet, best of luck.

[antnield]

BFI Player unveiled.

[A man stayed-put]

BFI Player unveiled.

Wow! That's tremendously exciting. Had this been mooted or teased at all? I don't remember seeing any mention of it anywhere.

[perkizitore]

I have BFI Player on my Samsung Smart TV for a while now, but it only features some old short films, newsreels and docs mainly plus some interviews and Q&As of artists hosted at BFI Southbank, there is no paid content at all.

[Tommaso]

Amazing! 28 hours of Mitchell & Kenyon films!