julian_craster

Film world at loggerheads over the future of the nation's unique cinematic heritage
Financial crisis at the British Film Institute that threatens famed archives may be due to 2012 Olympics siphoning off arts funding

THE INDEPENDENT
By Andrew Johnson
Published: 24 June 2007
Film world at loggerheads over the future of the nation's unique cinematic heritage - Independent Online Edition > News
The film world is at loggerheads over plans to sell off the British Film Institute's London headquarters - as the organisation struggles to cope with a financial crisis insiders believe is a result of the arts budget being raided to help fund the 2012 Olympics.
A legion of critics and academics say the plans, said to have the full support of the BFI's chairman, Anthony Minghella, Oscar-winning director of The English Patient, could herald the break up of the BFI's world-renowned collections.
The HQ, in the heart of the West End, was a gift from John Paul Getty and is home to the institute's library - which includes periodicals going back to its founding in 1933 - and stills archive.
There have long been fears that the Olympics are draining resources from the arts. The BFI's £16m annual grant has been frozen for four years, yet it needs around £34m a year to survive. It is also planning to "outsource" its publishing arm.
This week the BFI issued a plea for a further £34m to help it prevent the loss of a "substantial percentage" of its film and television archive housed in other parts of the country. That archive, containing tens of thousands and films and television programmes, is acknowledged as the best in the world.
Stephen Frears, the Oscar-nominated director of The Queen and a governor of the BFI, said: "The BFI is underfunded. That is the real issue. More importantly the archive [of films] is underfunded. That's to do with films decaying and that's a really serious problem."
The institute's director, Amanda Neville, confirmed last week that selling its HQ "is a possibility". Ms Neville said the BFI's "vision" was to create a new film centre - as yet unfunded - to house the library and stills archive as well as a revamped National Film Theatre. Until then, a university or college would house the library.
She said: "We look after the greatest archive of film in the world. We have a responsibility to ensure that we continue to be an international centre of film in this country. The National Film Theatre [on the South Bank in central London] is coming to the end of its natural life. So the plan is a new film centre that combines all of that.
"The vision is a very exciting one. The library and archive will be at the heart of that. It has to come back to the film centre at the end of the day - assuming that centre is built."
Critics, however, fear the centre will not be built, and the library and stills archive will end up going to the British Library, so breaking up the BFI's unsurpassed collection.
Michael Chanan, professor of film at Roehampton University, has published an open letter raising concerns about the BFI's plans, which has been signed by 50 other academics and film historians.
Professor Chanan said: "Our concern is that it is the end of the BFI as we know it. The BFI started in 1933, but this looks like the end of the line. The main problem is that the budget has been at a standstill since 2001. They are selling this building in Stephen Street, which they realise is worth a lot of money. But where are they going to put the reading room and library?
"There are one or two people who don't trust the BFI to run the film archive."
Geoffrey Nowell-Smith of Queen Mary, University of London, added: "You just wonder what this organisation is doing. The archive and library is the heart of how the BFI operates. While I appreciate they are trying to do their best, the idea of separating the library from the rest of the operation is crazy."
The BFI's Ms Neville said: "I make no apology for being ambitious. If the film centre doesn't happen there's going to be no national cinema to go to. I can't believe as a country that we're going to allow that to happen. Anthony Minghella is 100 per cent behind me."
A spokesman for the British Film Council, which channels funding from the Government to the BFI, said: "The UK Film Council allocates as much money as possible to the BFI without compromising our other spending commitments.
"We recognise that more money is needed for the National Archive, which is why we have been working closely with the BFI and other partners to produce the first ever National Archive Strategy."

Mr Dean

One of the main problems for the BFI, putting aside some of the management decisions over the last few years, is the lack of any sense of what 'film culture' actually means on behalf of the UK Film Council. The Film Council holds the purse strings and it is charged by the DCMS with supporting British film as both 'industry' and 'cultural activity'. The BFI has become the agent of the UKFC in carrying out the latter role. The BFI is the junior partner despite the fact that it has access to a much greater diversity of staff and supporters with a deep knowledge of film culture. The UKFC appears to me to be mainly staffed by industry personnel, with seemingly little knowledge of, or interest in, film history or a diverse film culture.

If the money is frozen because of the drain of funds to the Olympics (another debate?) the UKFC should still look at the balance in its spending on industry and culture. I fear it won't do this and for once the cliche of the bean counters destroying the potential for film art will come true.

On a slight tangent, I would also like to know who has sanctioned the use of expensive glossy paper for the BFI Southbank brochure at a time when the BFI is so short of funds?

DB7

This popped up on Myspace:
MySpace.com - Rover - 74 - Male - UK - www.myspace.com/rescuedbyrover
(beware, pun overload warning)

Steve Crook

It might even be readable without giving you a migrane if they lost that background and all the separately scrolling frames

Steve

Steve Crook

On similar matters, this is a press release they issued

Headlines
Palgrave partners with BFI
08.08.07 Katherine Rushton

Palgrave Macmillan has signed a partnership deal with
the British Film Institute's books arm BFI Publishing.

Under the agreement, which comes into force in January
2008, Palgrave will manage all editorial, production,
sales and marketing functions of BFI Publishing. BFI
will retains ownership of the list and copyright in
all titles, and a joint editorial board will meet
regularly to discuss projects. BFI will also give
Palgrave advanced notice of its "cultural plans" and
provide full access to BFI images and archive
material."

"We are delighted to have the opportunity to partner
with the BFI on this unique imprint," said Palgrave
m.d. Dominic Knight. "[We] look forward to drawing on
our combined strengths to extend professional and
cutting edge publishing in the study of cinema and
television." BFI director Amanda Nevill added: "By
working with one of the strongest academic publishers
in the world to support and grow this important and
flourishing area of study, we will be able to secure
the investment that BFI Publishing deserves."

BFI Publishing currently releases about 30 scholarly
film books each year and has a backlist of over 250
titles. Its 2006 turnover stood at £378,000.

orpheum

I read in the Ham & High yesterday that it has been decided that the Cross river tram has had its northern section put on hol;d till at least 2020.So this i would presume mean that ther is little chance of trams rumbling over Waterloo Bridge which presumably means that the BFI will not have to find an alternative site for the NFT.

Welcome To Highbury The Home Of Football

DB7

Film archives get £25m cash boost
BFI director Amanda Nevill
Amanda Nevill has been the BFI's director since 2003
The government has pledged to give the British Film Institute (BFI) £25m to safeguard its extensive archive.

The announcement comes hours before the BFI launches the London Film Festival with crime thriller Eastern Promises.

The funding package will help preserve its national archive, containing over 500,000 hours of film and TV material.

Many of its reels are deteriorating and need restoring. The BFI's Amanda Nevill said the cash would "bring into view much more of our precious heritage".

"This level of investment will mean we can once again set a world standard in conservation and preservation."

'National treasure'

Culture secretary James Purnell said the archive, held in Hertfordshire, was "a national treasure" that constituted "a visual history of Britain since the moving image again".

"From the earliest newsreels to CinemaScope to 3D, the BFI archive is one of the greatest collections of film and TV in the world. It's vital that we safeguard its future."

Started in 1935, the collection includes over 275,000 films, 210,000 TV programmes, seven million photographs and 15,000 posters.

The BFI's holdings also include more than 46,000 books, 5,000 periodical titles and more than two million newspaper cuttings.

Money will also be made available to protect regional collections like the Yorkshire Film Archive.

Its holdings include a reel of nitrate film showing a visit Queen Victoria made to Sheffield in May 1897.

orpheum

What i dont understand is tyaht about 20 years ago we were told by the BFI that thjey planned to transfer the Nitrate films to safety stock by 2000.I wonder what happened to this plan.Was it lack of funds or just pure negligence on the part of the BFI that this planned transfer was never completed in time.In any event to me it is to the eternal shame of this government if one reel of film disintegrates without copying due to inadequate finance.When you think of the billions being wasted on the Olympics particularly when you realise what a white elephant most buildings will become.

Welcome To Highbury The Home Of Football

penfold

Neither lack of funds or negligence...it's partly that nitrate material is still turning up from private and other collections in surprising quantities, and also that 'safety stock' is safe because it's not flammable in the same way, not because it's eternal . Thus some of the 'safety' transfers of, say, forty years ago, despite being kept properly, are now possibly in worse condition than the still-existing nitrate source material. Nitrate decomposition is unpredictable....nitrate film doesn't have a predictable half-life like an atomic particle, nitrate negatives from 100 years ago can still be pristine; a fifty year old print could be powder....and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

tellingbone

I'm not sure how to take this comment, were you joking?

London is probably the most famous city in the world, we don't need the Olympics to publicise it. I'll wager that all the pro Olympic people in the UK will live to regret their allegiance once the games are over.

Steve Crook

Or maybe even before they start?

Steve