The BFI Production Board (1964-2000) was a state-funded film production fund managed by the
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
(BFI) and "explicitly charged with backing work by new and uncommercial filmmakers."
Emerging from the Experimental Film Fund, the BFI Production Board was a major source of funding for experimental, art house, animation, short and documentary cinema, with a continuing commitment to funding under-represented voices in filmmaking.
1952-63: Experimental Film Fund and early productions
At its foundation in the 1930s, the BFI had no mandate to fund film production in the UK. However, the 1948 Radcliffe Report 'create
a more favourable climate for potential film production by recommending that the Institute should focus its activities exclusively on the promotion of film as an art form'. As part of the plans for the
Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Historian Kenneth O. Morgan says the Festival was a "triumphant success" during which people:
...
in 1951, the BFI was allocated funding to produce a cinematic side of the festival, using £10,000 to commission several short experimental films "to be shown in the Telecinema, a temporary four-hundred seater cinema on the South Bank".
After the closure of the
Crown Film Unit
The Crown Film Unit was an organisation within the British Government's Ministry of Information during the Second World War. Formerly the GPO Film Unit it became the Crown Film Unit in 1940. Its remit was to make films for the general public in ...
, there was no remaining state film funding body in the UK. When a new scheme, the
Eady Levy
The Eady Levy was a tax on box-office receipts in the United Kingdom, intended to support the British film industry. It was introduced in 1950 as a voluntary levy as part of the Eady plan, named after Sir Wilfred Eady, a Treasury official. The le ...
, was introduced in December 1951, providing two grants of £12,500 to make experimental films for the Telecinema, the BFI invited producer
Michael Balcon
Sir Michael Elias Balcon (19 May 1896 – 17 October 1977) was an English film producer known for his leadership of Ealing Studios in West London from 1938 to 1955. Under his direction, the studio became one of the most important British film ...
to chair the selection committee, and the Experimental Film Fund was created. It received no further funding from the BFI, and offered scant support despite its ambitions. "The first projects considered were in the fields of stereoscopic technology and art documentaries." But this changed through the emergence of the
Free Cinema
Free Cinema was a documentary film movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the mid-1950s. The term referred to an absence of propagandised intent or deliberate box office appeal. Co-founded by Lindsay Anderson (but he later disdained the ' ...
movement, which included a number of young filmmakers -
Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Gordon Anderson (17 April 1923 – 30 August 1994) was a British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading-light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave. He is most widely remembered for h ...
,
Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz (21 July 1926 – 25 November 2002) was a Czech-born British filmmaker, one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in British cinema during the 1950s and 1960s. Two of the best-known films he directed are ''Saturday Night and Sun ...
,
Tony Richardson
Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson (5 June 1928 – 14 November 1991) was an English theatre and film director and producer whose career spanned five decades. In 1964, he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film ''Tom Jones (1963 film ...
, and
Walter Lassally
Walter Lassally (18 December 1926 – 23 October 2017) was a German-born British cinematographer. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography in 1965 for the film ''Zorba the Greek''.
Life and work
Walter Lassally was born in Berlin, Germa ...
who were prominent contributors to the BFI's magazine
Sight & Sound
''Sight and Sound'' (also spelled ''Sight & Sound'') is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). It conducts the well-known, once-a-decade ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time, ongoing ...
. The Experimental Film Fund supported Free Cinema films such as Reisz and Richardson's ''
Momma Don't Allow
''Momma Don't Allow'' is a short British documentary film of 1956 about a show of the Chris Barber band with Ottilie Patterson in a north London trad jazz club - specifically the Fisherman's Arms in Wood Green. The film features skip jiving by ...
'', Lorenza Mazetti's ''
Together
''ToGetHer'' (, aka Superstar Express) is a 2009 Taiwanese drama starring Jiro Wang of Fahrenheit, Rainie Yang and George Hu. It was produced by Comic International Productions ( 可米國際影視事業股份有限公司) and directed by Linzi P ...
'' (1956), and
Lloyd Reckord
Lloyd Reckord (26 May 1929 – 8 July 2015) was a Jamaican actor, film maker, and stage director who lived in England for some years. Reckord appeared in 1958 in a West End production of '' Hot Summer Night'', which as an ITV adaptation broadc ...
's ''Ten Bob in Winter'' (1963), the first British film by a black filmmaker.
Christophe Dupin notes that, despite only having £30,000 in funding for its decade of existence, the film fund had a wide impact:
a fair proportion f its productionswon major prizes in film festivals around the world and received positive reviews in the national press... Of the fifty or so filmmakers supported, at least 32 went on to work in a variety of jobs in the British (and occasionally overseas) film and television industries… The fact that the Fund also gave their first chance to seven women filmmakers at a time when creative jobs within the film and TV industries were the almost exclusive property of men was no small achievement either.
1964-71: Foundation and expansion of the Production Board
Jennie Lee became Britain's first ever arts minister in 1964, as part of
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. He ...
's newly elected Labour government. She increased the BFI's government grant-in-aid, and "insisted that port of it should go to experimental film production and young filmmakers". Increased funding enabled the BFI to professionalise its approach to funding from 1966, under its first production officer
Bruce Beresford
Bruce Beresford (; born 16 August 1940) is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 50-year career, both locally and internationally in the United States.
Beresford's notable films he has directed include ''Br ...
, and grant-winning filmmakers 'were also given access to technical facilities at the BFI Production Board's offices near
Waterloo'.
The Board's first production, ''
Herostratus
Herostratus ( grc, Ἡρόστρατος) was a 4th-century BC Greek, accused of seeking notoriety as an arsonist by destroying the second Temple of Artemis in Ephesus (on the outskirts of present-day Selçuk). The conclusion prompted the crea ...
'', had begun under the Experimental Film Fund, and its production was delayed by the transition to the Production Board, and by the inexperience of the production team.
Its second featurette ''
Loving Memory
''Loving Memory'' is a 1970 black and white psychological drama film written and directed by Tony Scott, credited as Anthony Scott. This 52 minute film was made 12 years before Scott's feature directorial debut, '' The Hunger''. It was partly fi ...
'' (1970) followed on from its director
Tony Scott
Anthony David Leighton Scott (21 June 1944 – 19 August 2012) was an English film director and producer. He was known for directing highly successful action and thriller films such as ''Top Gun'' (1986), ''Beverly Hills Cop II'' (1987), ''Day ...
's opportunity to direct a short, ''One of the Missing''. Beresford's successor
Mamoun Hassan
Mamoun Hassan (12 December 1937 – 29 July 2022) was a Saudi-born British screenwriter, director, editor, producer and teacher of film who held prominent positions in British cinema during the 1970s and 1980s, frequently backing experimental work. ...
commissioned a featurette from
London Film School
London Film School (LFS) is a film school in London and is situated in a converted brewery in Covent Garden, London, neighbouring Soho, a hub of the UK film industry. It is the oldest film school in the UK. graduate
Bill Douglas
William Gerald Douglas (17 April 1934 – 18 June 1991) was a Scottish film director best known for the trilogy of films about his early life.
Biography
Born in Newcraighall on the outskirts of Edinburgh, he was brought up initially by his m ...
. ''My Childhood'' (1971) won the Silver Lion at the
Venice Film Festival
The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival he ...
, a success that secured the reputation and future of the Board.
1972-1981: Feature Film and Experimental Cinema
In 1972, the Board's funding was increased significantly to £75,000, and producer
Michael Relph
Michael Leighton George Relph (16 February 1915 – 30 September 2004) was an English film producer, art director, screenwriter and film director. He was the son of actor George Relph.
Films
Relph began his film career in 1933 as an assistant ...
took over from Michael Balcon as board chair. Under Hassan and Relph, the Board produced two further films by Douglas, ''My Ain Folk'' (1974) and ''My Way Home'' (1978), as well as features such as ''
Winstanley Winstanley may refer to:
People:
*Alan Winstanley, British record producer
*Bill Winstanley, English footballer who played for Stoke City
*Dean Winstanley, English darts player
*Eric Winstanley, English footballer
*Gerrard Winstanley, 17th-century ...
'', by
Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow (born Robert Kevin Brownlow; 2 June 1938) is a British film historian, television documentary-maker, filmmaker, author, and film editor. He is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era, having become inter ...
and
Andrew Mollo
Andrew Mollo (born 15 May 1940 in Epsom, Surrey, England)Kevin Brownlow: ''How It Happened Here.'' UKA Press, London/Amsterdam/Shizuoka 2007, , p. 201. is a British expert on military uniforms, which has led him into a career in motion pictures ...
and ''
A Private Enterprise
''A Private Enterprise'' is a 1974 British film directed by Peter K Smith. It stars Salmaan Peerzada as Shiv Verma, an Indian immigrant in Birmingham who attempts to start his own business. It is regarded as the first British Asian
British ...
'' (1974) by Peter K. Smith (the first Asian feature film produced in Britain), but it also provided funding for the
London Film-Makers' Co-op
The London Film-makers' Co-op, or LFMC, was a British film-making workshop founded in 1966. It ceased to exist in 1999 when it merged with London Video Arts to form LUX.
It grew out of film screenings at the Better Books bookstore, part of the 19 ...
, and experimental filmmakers such as
Stephen Dwoskin
Stephen Dwoskin (15 January 1939 – 28 June 2012) was a major avant-garde filmmaker whose work was closely connected to the ' gaze theory' associated with Laura Mulvey; a significant disabled filmmaker – though he rejected being framed as suc ...
,
William Raban,
Peter Gidal
Peter may refer to:
People
* List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Peter (given name)
** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church
* Peter (surname), a sur ...
and
Gill Etherley.
In 1974,
Barrie Gavin
Barrie Gavin (born 10 June 1935) is a British film director.
Early years
Barrie Gavin was educated at St Paul's School, and studied history at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge from 1954 to 1957.'Cambridge Tripos Lists', ''Times'', 28 June ...
took over from Hassan as Head of Production, but resigned fourteen months later. "Yet his short tenure remains one of the most audacious periods in the Board's history", with the production of 12 political documentaries by far-left and feminist film collectives such as the
Berwick Street Collective. He selected few fiction features for production, the most notable being
Horace Ové
Sir Horace Shango Ové (born 1936) is a Trinidad and Tobago-born British filmmaker, photographer, painter and writer. One of the leading black independent filmmakers to emerge in Britain in the post-war period, Ové holds the ''Guinness World R ...
's ''
Pressure
Pressure (symbol: ''p'' or ''P'') is the force applied perpendicular to the surface of an object per unit area over which that force is distributed. Gauge pressure (also spelled ''gage'' pressure)The preferred spelling varies by country and e ...
'', the first black feature film produced in the UK.
After Gavin's resignation and the appointment of Peter Sainsbury as Head of Production, the Board faced a number of crises: the first concerned Sainsbury's call of a set of explicit selection criteria, which "were frequently the subject of fierce controversy among independent filmmakers";
the second concerned censorship, after the BFI caved to police demands not to screen
Nick Broomfield
Nicholas Broomfield (born 1948) is an English documentary film director. His self-reflective style has been regarded as influential to many later filmmakers. In the early 21st century, he began to use non-actors in scripted works, which he cal ...
and
Joan Churchill's documentary ''
Juvenile Liaison
''Juvenile Liaison 1'' (1975) and ''Juvenile Liaison 2'' (1990) are documentary films by award winning film director Nick Broomfield about a juvenile liaison project in Blackburn, Lancashire. The first film examines a series of children and thei ...
'' (1975), the first full-length documentary funded by the Board; the third concerned the lack of distribution for the Board's films, including ''Pressure'', due to economic constraints. Sainsbury made improving this a priority, and "between 1977 and 1979, a dozen new BFI films has a London theatrical release… six of them being bought by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
for television transmission". Budgets remained low, and in 1979, "the Production Board
adto strike an agreement with the
ACTT (the film technicians' union) to allow crews to be paid below agreed minimum rates in exchange for a share in the profits".
Chris Petit
Chris Petit (born 17 June 1949) is an English novelist and filmmaker. During the 1970s he was Film Editor for '' Time Out'' and wrote in ''Melody Maker''. His first film was the cult British road movie ''Radio On'', while his 1982 film ''An Unsu ...
's debut film ''
Radio On
''Radio On'' is a 1979 film directed by Christopher Petit. It is a rare example of a British road movie, shot in black and white by Wim Wenders' assistant cameraman Martin Schäfer and featuring music from a number of new wave bands of the ...
'' (1979),
Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway, (born 5 April 1942) is a Welsh film director, screenwriter and artist. His films are noted for the distinct influence of Renaissance and Baroque painting, and Flemish painting in particular. Common traits in his films are the ...
's ''A Walk Through H'' (1978), the
Quay Brothers
Stephen and Timothy Quay ( ; born June 17, 1947) are American identical twin brothers and stop-motion animators who are better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They were also the recipients of the 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding ...
' ''
Nocturna Artificialia'' (1979),
Sue Clayton's ''The Song of the Shirt'' (1979),
Laura Mulvey
Laura Mulvey (born 15 August 1941) is a British feminist film theorist. She was educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck, University of London. She previously taught at Bulmers ...
and
Peter Wollen
Peter Wollen (29 June 1938 – 17 December 2019) was a Film theory, film theorist and filmmaker. He studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. Both Political journalism, political journalist and film theorist, Wollen's ''Signs and Meaning in the ...
's ''
Riddles of the Sphinx'' (1979), and
Menelik Shabazz
Menelik Shabazz (30 May 1954 – 28 June 2021) was a Barbados-born British film director, producer, educator, and writer, acknowledged as a pioneer in the development of independent Black British cinema, having been at the forefront of contempor ...
's ''
Burning an Illusion
''Burning an Illusion'' is a 1981 British film written and directed by Menelik Shabazz, about a young British-born black woman's love life, mostly shot in London's Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove communities.Ade Solanke"Burning an Illusion (1981 ...
'' (1981) represented the diversity and innovation of Sainsbury's commissioning: they included and challenged both fiction and documentary, and combined social politics with experimental aesthetics. According to Sue Harper, the Board
backed projects which seemed too avant-garde for mainstream financiers… The aims of the BFI were laudable, and certainly films were funded which would otherwise have had no chance of reaching the screen, but the Production Board had a penchant for films with an academic flavour, which displayed their credentials with a degree of martyrdom.
In 1982, ACTT suspended their agreement with the Board, leading to the ACTT Workshop Declaration, which created a Board-funded Regional Production Fund, with monies going to the
Sheffield Filmmakers' Co-op, the
Leeds Animation Workshop, the
Liverpool Black Media Group and the
Birmingham Black Film Group.
1982–91: Partnership with Channel 4 and the "Golden Age"
According to the BFI's Screenonline,
1982 saw a major breakthrough when Greenaway's ''The Draughtsman's Contract
''The Draughtsman's Contract'' is a 1982 British comedy-drama film written and directed by Peter Greenaway – his first conventional feature film (following the feature-length mockumentary ''The Falls''). Originally produced for Channel 4, the f ...
'' became a modest but genuine commercial success. More significantly, it was also the first co-production between the BFI and the newly established Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
, which gave the BFI a regular television platform and correspondingly greater exposure for its work. Behind the scenes, C4 also became a significant contributor to Production Board funds in general as well as specific individual works. Other films that benefited from the collaboration included '' The Gold Diggers'' (Sally Potter
Charlotte Sally Potter (born 19 September 1949) is an English film director and screenwriter. She is known for directing ''Orlando'' (1992), which won the audience prize for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival.
Early life
Potter was born an ...
, 1983), '' Nineteen Nineteen'' (Hugh Brody
Hugh Brody (born 1943) is a British anthropologist, writer, director and lecturer.
Education
In the 1950s he worked as an accountant in Sheffield before passing the entrance examinations for the University of Oxford. He studied at Trinity Coll ...
, 1985) and '' Ascendancy'' ( Edward Bennett, 1983), the last of which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival
The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...
.
Subsequent international successes for British art house included a Silver Bear at Berlin for
Derek Jarman
Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman (31 January 1942 – 19 February 1994) was an English artist, film maker, costume designer, stage designer, writer, gardener and gay rights activist.
Biography
Jarman was born at the Royal Victoria Nursing Home ...
's ''
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of hi ...
'' and the International Film Critics' Prize for
Terence Davies
Terence Davies (born 10 November 1945) is an English screenwriter, film director, and novelist, seen by many critics as one of the greatest British filmmakers of his times. He is best known as the writer and director of autobiographical films ...
' ''
Distant Voices, Still Lives
''Distant Voices, Still Lives'' is a 1988 British period drama film written and directed by Terence Davies. It evokes working-class family life in Liverpool during the 1940s and early 1950s, paying particular attention to the role of popular mus ...
'' at the
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
. Alan Burton and Steven Chibnall refer to this period as the Board's "golden age".
As well as providing funding for an expansive and internationally-successful British art house, the Board continued in its remit to fund first-time filmmakers and filmmakers from under-represented communities. The New Directors scheme, initiated in 1986, led to funding for a remarkable range of films, including
Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha, (born 10 January 1960) is a British film director of Indian origin. Most of her films explore the lives of Indians living in England. The common theme among her work showcases the trials of Indian women living in the UK and ho ...
's ''
I'm British But...'' (1989),
Isaac Julien
Sir Isaac Julien (born 21 February 1960Annette Kuhn"Julien, Isaac (1960–)" BFI Screen Online.) is a British installation artist, filmmaker, and distinguished professor of the arts at UC Santa Cruz.
Early life
Julien was born in the East End ...
's ''
Young Soul Rebels
''Young Soul Rebels'' is a 1991 British coming-of-age thriller written by Derek Saldaan McClintock, Isaac Julien and Paul Hallam, and directed by Julien as his second narrative feature film. The film examines the interaction between youth cultu ...
'' (1991), and
Margaret Tait
Margaret Caroline Tait (11 November 1918 – 16 April 1999) was a Scottish medical doctor, filmmaker and poet.
Early life and education
Tait was born and raised in Kirkwall, in the Orkney Islands in the north of Scotland, before being sent to ...
's ''Blue Black Permanent'' (1992).
1992-2000: National Lottery funding and the end of the Production Board
There was continuity across the change of funding that occurred in 1992 (to the Department of Heritage, and subsequently the
National Lottery Fund), with filmmakers such as
Patrick Keiller
Patrick Keiller (born 1950) is a British film-maker, writer and lecturer.
Biography
Keiller was born in 1950, in Blackpool and studied at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. In 1979 he joined the Royal College of Art ...
and
Shane Meadows
Shane Meadows (born 26 December 1972) is an English director, screenwriter and actor, known for his work in independent film, most notably the cult film ''This Is England'' (2006) and its three sequels (2010–2015).
Meadows' other films inc ...
following earlier New Directors shorts with first features. The Board also produced features such as ''
Sixth Happiness
''Sixth Happiness'' is a 1997 British drama film directed by Indian director Waris Hussein. It is based on the 1991 autobiography of Firdaus Kanga entitled '' Trying to Grow''. Kanga played himself in this film about Britain, India, race and se ...
'' (
Waris Hussein
Waris Hussein ('' né'' Habibullah; born 9 December 1938) is a British-Indian television and film director. At the beginning of his career he was employed by the BBC as its youngest drama director. He directed early episodes of '' Doctor Who'', i ...
, 1997), ''
Under the Skin'' (
Carine Adler, 1997), ''Speak Like A Child'' (
John Akomfrah, 1998), and
Jasmin Dizdar
Jasmin Dizdar (born 8 June 1961) is a British-Bosnian film director, screenwriter and author best known for his feature film '' Beautiful People'' and his World War Two thriller '' Chosen''. Jasmin Dizdar also published a book on cinema, which achi ...
's ''
Beautiful People'' (1999), which won Best Film in ''
Un Certain Regard
(, meaning 'a certain glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob.
The section presents 20 films w ...
'' at Cannes. This win was followed by an announcement at the same festival by culture minister
Chris Smith, amalgamating all British film funding agencies into the
UK Film Council
The UK Film Council (UKFC) was a non-departmental public body set up in 2000 to develop and promote the film industry in the UK. It was constituted as a private company limited by guarantee, owned by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and ...
from the following year.
External links
BFI Production Boar
streaming video playerBFI Screenonline
They Started Herean
BFI Production Boardimdb.com BFI Production Boar
Filmography(incomplete)
References
{{Reflist, 30em
Film organisations in the United Kingdom