18/12/2002

Is it harder to be an independent producer now in the UK than it was when you started out in the business some 20 years ago?
“In the 20 years I’ve been in this business, I’ve never seen an industry where people are so blind to how good things are. It’s a human characteristic, I think, not to know you’re in a boom time until it’s over. We’re not in that boom any longer, but in the UK there is more cash-flow than there was during the 80s – despite the collapse of Film Four and Granada Films. Of course, as an independent producer, you still have to look for pre-sales or co-production deals in order to complete the financing of your films. However the main pressure comes from the opposite end: from people coming to the UK with projects that qualify for UK money from tax incentives, subsidies or broadcasters. New state regulations are actually being introduced by the Department of Culture Media & Sport (DCMS) to stop other countries from abusing the system by applying for co-production status with the UK”.

Has the quality of films improved since the Film Council started operating in 2000?
“Certainly. And not because more money became available, but because there is a much better way of managing and investing that money. The previous structure of the Arts Council of England was wrong, and the quality of films was affected by that. Now with the Film Council, the quality has obviously improved with films such as Gosford Park, or the ones supported by Paul Trijbits’s New Cinema Fund”.

The Film Council is now focusing on distribution. Do you agree that this is the weakest sector in the UK film industry?
“It’s ironic that we now have the largest number of distributors in the UK since Palace went under in the early 90s. Obviously what we don’t have is successful distributors with the resources to market films properly. If the proposals put forward include helping independent distributors to expand their business and become more competitive, with bigger marketing budgets for British films, then I totally agree with it”.

In his recent BAFTA speech, Alan Parker (Film Council chairman) said he hoped British filmmakers would move away from the ‘Little England’ vision and make films with broader international appeal. Do you agree with him?
“No, I don’t. The fact remains that the films that are constantly successful internationally – aside from the Working Title films - are the low-to-middle-budget British films. People are often confused, thinking that the more specific the subject matter, the more general is the film’s appeal. The Magdalene Sisters doesn’t have an international subject matter, for instance, but it’s huge in Italy. The Ken Loach films keep also get more and more widespread distribution because people want to see his films. Why would we want to change that? This is a market that the UK and France have been most successful in supplying. The Spaniards and Danes have also become very strong in that market over the last five to ten years.
The brilliant Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner from Working Title are probably the only British producers able to regularly supply films for the international marketplace, but not everybody can…They will continue to do fantastic international films and will inspire others to do the same, but it doesn’t mean that this should be the only way to go for British films. We would be a very barren and boring film industry if we didn’t have any room for people like Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, Terence Davies, Marc Evans and Stephen Frears and so on...”