David Cameron’s comments about the UK film industry have
attracted a good deal of controversy. His view is that the film industry’s
primary concern should be investing in films which are likely to be “mainstream
and commercially promising”.
This is part of a wider range of government statements on the subject of
British film, most of which will be formally set out in Lord Smith’s review next
week. The emphasis is largely on the notion of making British film more
lucrative than it is now, by appealing to broader international markets (i.e.
America) and trying to maximise profits by investment in the aforementioned “commercially
promising” projects.
The rhetoric has been brief and undetailed so far, but the
tone is troubling. It comes across as ill-informed nonsense. Whilst I have
sympathy with the idea that so-called mainstream projects should get a higher
proportion of public funding than they presently do, there are many issues with
these ideas.
