Armando iannucci: 'it's folly to sweep aside 10 years of success at uk film council'

When the government announced it was shutting down the UK Film Council, the inevitable cries of horror from the creative industry were not amateur protests from a bunch of out-of-work

actors. This wasn't one of those embarrassing street protests by thespians demanding that we divert money from schools and hospitals to help save a badly attended puppet theatre that

puts on vital verse dramas about the decline of the wool industry in Derby. This was something completely different. The extraordinary support for the council, coming from all our major

actors and directors, and winning rallying cries from the likes of Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks Studios, is actually a loud response from many hard-bitten

professionals in the film industry, here and internationally, who simply cannot fathom the economic folly of what's being proposed. It may look macho and bullish to put out a press

release saying you're shutting down a big quango that spends public money, but in the rush to get to the printers no one at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport seems to have

spotted that all this money is actually made back in spades. The UK Film Council makes money, lots of it, and plays a vital part in the economic health of the wider industry around it. For

every £1 the council puts into film, it gets £5 back. This doesn't go into performance-related bonuses for board members and shareholders. Instead, it goes back into production and

education, while a good deal of it generates more tax revenues to send to the exchequer, which, presumably, can then spend some of it on schools and hospitals. That's why the argument,

made in the _Observer_ last Sunday by the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, that the UKFC is to be shut down because it's an expensive quango, simply doesn't wash. This is especially

so since the council recently slashed its administrative budget by 20% and has worked out plans to slash it by a further 50%. It was never given the chance to present these plans to the

government. Instead, a conclusion was made quickly, in response to a debate that hasn't yet been allowed to take place. Here's what happens when you try to make a film. You have no

money, but you have an idea. You need people, helpful, experienced people, to guide you to where the money is, fit you up with the best sort of financial backing, who understand the film

you want to make, can nudge it in a direction that will see it gets the audience it merits. That's what the UK Film Council built up 10 years of expertise in doing. When you make a

film, you want to work in an industry that is knowledgeable and at the top of its game, allowing you to draw on all the home-grown resources available, in editing, studios, design,

marketing, and so on. That's what the UKFC did for the past 10 years, pouring the profits from its investments back into film resources and film training and education schemes, to

nurture the next generation of film-making talents who are now coming to fruition. That's why we now have the likes of Noel Clarke, and Shane Meadows and Danny Boyle and Paul

Greengrass. It's how I was able to make my film, _In the Loop_, last year and why throughout the international award season _In the Loop_ was up against not just _Avatar_ but such

mighty films as _An Education_, _Moon_ and _Fish Tank_. It's also why the likes of _The_ _Last King of Scotland_ and _Slumdog Millionaire_ cleaned up at the Oscars. And why British

films are now being watched by a larger percentage of the cinema-going audience than ever before. Not all the films I've mentioned received UKFC funding, of course, but the people

behind them got their breaks through the council, and the strength of Britain's cinema output at the moment is testimony to a coherence and solidity behind the industry that has been in

place for a decade now. Before then, the industry was broken and insular, now it is confident and ambitious. Small grant-funding bodies competed with larger, barely independent outlets tied

in with US studios, so that British film went through a period of not knowing whether it should make obscure art-house films no one would pay to see, or Hollywood-style costume dramas that

might sell internationally but could just as equally bankrupt everyone concerned. Today we have a stronger industry, much surer of itself and what it wants to do. We've had focus and

stability, and now, after 10 years of it, we're on the verge of reaping the financial rewards. Our smaller-scale productions are popular at home and hit harder overseas. For example,

Chris Morris's _Four Lions_ has just won the audience award at the LA film festival. Meantime, British talent now packs a mightier punch with big-budget films. Look at the likes of

Matthew Vaughn and Aaron Johnson in _Kick-Ass_, or _Shaun of the Dead's_ director, Edgar Wright, who opens later this month with Hollywood blockbuster _Scott Pilgrim vs the World_. The

past 10 years have got us to this place. And here's what will happen if the council goes. Immediately, films that already have some UKFC funding will find it harder to complete their

finances. Which independent money-person is going to risk putting cash into a film when there's a huge question-mark hanging over part of the contribution? Far better to put it into

_Incredible Hulk 7_. Meantime, international productions hoping to use British skills and facilities by basing part of their production here will now back away. As Clint Eastwood and

DreamWorks have said in their letters of support, the UKFC was _the_ principal focus of expertise in co-ordinating all this. Once it goes, things get messy and bitty. Where's the point

of contact? Which is the specialist body sorting all this out? Why bother? Let's go recreate Nottingham in Hungary. The government argues that it will hold on to the council for another

18 months and then replace it with something more direct. But which knowledgeable Film Council employee with a bagful of contacts, a time limit on their job and acres of experience is going

to resist all those tempting employment offers piling in from other studios and production companies? Over the next 18 months, the glue that is holding the UK industry together will come

unstuck, and we will all be weaker for it. Productions will look to Europe and America for funding, so the profits from any hits won't make their way back to the UK in any great numbers

(precisely the opposite, by the way, of what the culture secretary was asking for in his article last week). The government says there's no question-mark over the level of funding of

British films, but who will decide which films get the money? Who decides which one of, say, seven competing comedy scripts seems the funniest, has the most memorable characters, has a

sustained, well-structured dynamic plot, can attract the right level of casting and won't turn out to be a crock of crud? Obviously, some expert guidance will be needed, but where do we

put it? Maybe in one building to make things easier. And once we get these experts together, along with administrative staff, how do we persuade the world there's a focus once again

for investment, a one-stop shop for film development? Maybe, in a few years' time someone in the culture department will think it's a great idea to give this body a name, some sort

of branding that shows we all mean business. How about something like the British Film Funding Unit? And there we'll be, three years on, more or less where we are now. Why lose three

years' worth of work during the wait? The council has a plan in place to operate in a more lean, efficient way, while keeping its unique expertise intact. Maybe now is the time to have

that debate, before any final conclusions are made.