British Film Institute
Abbreviation | BFI |
---|---|
Predecessor | UK Film Council |
Formation | 1933 |
Type | Film, television charitable organisation |
Headquarters | London, England, UK |
Region served | United Kingdom |
Chair | Jay Hunt |
Chief Executive | Ben Roberts |
Revenue (2022–23) | £127,827,000[1] |
Website | www |
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, distribution, and education. It is sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport,[2] and partially funded under the British Film Institute Act 1949.[3]
Purpose
The BFI was established in 1933 to encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom, to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and manners, to promote education about film, television and the moving image generally, and their impact on society, to promote access to and appreciation of the widest possible range of British and world cinema and to establish, care for and develop collections reflecting the moving image history and heritage of the United Kingdom.[4]
BFI activities
Archive
The BFI maintains the world's largest
Cinemas
The BFI runs the BFI Southbank (formerly the National Film Theatre (NFT)) and the BFI IMAX cinema, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London.[5] The IMAX has the largest cinema screen in the UK and shows popular recent releases and short films showcasing its technology, which includes 3D screenings and 11,600 watts of digital surround sound.[6] BFI Southbank (the National Film Theatre screens and the Studio) shows films from all over the world, particularly critically acclaimed historical and specialised films that may not otherwise get a cinema showing. The BFI also distributes archival and cultural cinema to other venues – each year to more than 800 venues all across the UK, as well as to a substantial number of overseas venues.[7]
Education
The BFI offers a range of education initiatives, in particular to support the teaching of film and media studies in schools.[8] In late 2012, the BFI received money from the Department for Education to create the BFI Film Academy Network for young people aged between 16 and 25.[9][10][11] A residential scheme is held at the NFTS every year.
Festivals
The BFI runs the annual
Other activities
The BFI publishes the monthly
The BFI has co-produced a number of television series featuring footage from the BFI National Archive, in partnership with the BBC, including The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon, The Lost World of Friese-Greene and The Lost World of Tibet.
The BFI has also produced contemporary artists' moving image work, most notably through the programme of the BFI Gallery, which was located at BFI Southbank from March 2007 to March 2011. The programme of the gallery resulted in several new commissions by leading artists, including projects which engaged directly with the BFI National Archive, among which are Patrick Keiller's 'The City of the Future', Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard's 'RadioMania: An Abandoned Work' and Deimantas Narkevicious' 'Into the Unknown'. The Gallery also initiated projects by film-makers such as Michael Snow, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jane and Louise Wilson and John Akomfrah.[13][14]
The BFI also operates a streaming service called BFI Player. This streaming service offers a variety of niche and art films.[15]
Organisation
History
The institute was founded in 1933.
The institute was restructured following the Radcliffe Report of 1948, which recommended that it should concentrate on developing the appreciation of filmic art, rather than creating film itself. Thus control of educational film production passed to the National Committee for Visual Aids in Education and the British Film Academy assumed control for promoting production. From 1952 to 2000, the BFI provided funding for new and experimental film-makers via the BFI Production Board.
The institute received a
In 1988, the BFI opened the London
Today
The BFI is currently managed on a day-to-day basis by its chief executive, Ben Roberts. Supreme decision-making authority rests with a chair and a board of up to 15 governors. The current chair is Jay Hunt, a television executive, who took up the post in February 2024.[17] Governors, including the Chair, are appointed by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
The BFI operates with three sources of income. The largest is public money allocated by the
As well as its work on film, the BFI also devotes a large amount of its time to the preservation and study of British television programming and its history. In 2000, it published a high-profile list of the
The delayed redevelopment of the National Film Theatre finally took place in 2007, creating in the rebranded "BFI Southbank" new education spaces, a contemporary art gallery dedicated to the moving image[19] (the BFI Gallery), and a pioneering mediatheque which for the first time enabled the public to gain access, free of charge, to some of the otherwise inaccessible treasures in the National Film & Television Archive. The mediatheque has proved to be the most successful element of this redevelopment, and there are plans to roll out a network of them across the UK.[citation needed]
An announcement of a £25 million capital investment in the Strategy for UK Screen Heritage was made by Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport at the opening night of the 2007 London Film Festival. The bulk of this money paid for long overdue development of the BFI National Archive facilities in Hertfordshire and Warwickshire.[citation needed]
During 2009, the UK Film Council persuaded the government that there should only be one main public-funded body for film, and that body should be the UKFC, while the BFI should be abolished. In 2010, the government announced that there would be a single body for film. Despite intensive lobbying (including, controversially, using public funding to pay public relations agencies to put its case forward), the UKFC failed to persuade the government that it should have that role and, instead, the BFI took over most of the UKFC's functions and funding from 1 April 2011, with the UKFC being subsequently abolished. Since then, the BFI has been responsible for all Lottery funding for film—originally in excess of £25m p.a., and currently in excess of £40m p.a.[citation needed]
The BFI Film Academy forms part of the BFI's overall 5–19 Education Scheme. The programme is being supported by the Department for Education in England who have committed £1m per annum funding from April 2012 and 31 March 2015. It is also funded through the National Lottery, Creative Scotland and Northern Ireland Screen.
On 29 November 2016, the BFI announced that over 100,000 television programmes are to be digitised before the video tapes, which currently have an estimated five-to-six-year shelf life, become unusable. The BFI aims to make sure that the television archive is still there in 200 years' time.[20]
The BFI announced in February 2021 that it is teaming up with American diversity and inclusion program #StartWith8Hollywood founded by Thuc Doan Nguyen to make it global.[21]
Leadership
The BFI is currently chaired by Jay Hunt and run by CEO Ben Roberts.
BFI Chair
- George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 5th Duke of Sutherland (1933–1936)
- Sir Charles Cleland (1936–1937)
- Sir George Clerk (1938–1939)
- William Brass, 1st Baron Chattisham (1939–1945)
- Patrick Gordon Walker (1946–1948)
- Cecil Harmsworth King (1948–1952)
- S. C. Roberts (1952–1956)
- Sylvester Gates (1956–1964)
- Sir William Coldstream (1964–1971)
- Sir Denis Forman (1971–1973)
- Lord Lloyd of Hampstead (1973–1976)
- John Freeman (1976–1977)
- Enid Wistrich (Acting) (1977–1978)
- Sir Basil Engholm (1978–1981)
- Lord Attenborough (1982–1992)
- Jeremy Thomas (1993–1997)
- Sir Alan Parker (1998–1999)
- Joan Bakewell (1999–2002)
- Anthony Minghella (2003–2007)
- Roger Laughton (Acting) (2008)
- Greg Dyke (2008–2016)
- Josh Berger (2016–2021)[22]
- Tim Richards (2021–2024)[23][24]
- Jay Hunt (2024–)[25]
BFI directors
- J. W. Brown (1933–1936)
- Oliver Bell (1936–1949)
- Denis Forman (1949–1955)
- James Quinn(1955–1964)
- Stanley Reed (1964–1972)
- Keith Lucas (1972–1978)
- Anthony Smith (1979–1987)
- Wilf Stevenson (1988–1997)
- Jane Clarke (acting, 1997)
- John Woodward (1998–1999)
- Jon Teckman (1999–2002)
- Adrian Wootton (acting, 2002–2003)
- Amanda Nevill (2003–2020)
- Ben Roberts (2020–present)[26]
See also
- BFI The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time
- BFI 75 Most Wanted – the most sought-after films currently missing from the BFI archive
- BFI Flipside – the DVD/Blu-ray collection dedicated to telling the alternative history of British film
- BFI Top 100 British films
- BFI TV 100 – a list of the best British television programmes
- Fellows of the British Film Institute
- Cinema of the United Kingdom
- Independent Cinema in the United Kingdom
- Screenonline – a history website run by the BFI
- List of film institutes
- Association of European Film Archives and Cinematheques
- Sutherland Trophy – annual BFI award for "the maker of the most original and imaginative film introduced at the National Film Theatre during the year"
References
- ^ "Charity overview, THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE, Register of Charities – The Charity Commission". Retrieved 17 February 2024.
- ^ "British Film Institute". Government of the United Kingdom.
- ^ "Financial Legislation". BFI ScreenOnline. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
- Charity Commissioners for England and Wales. Archived from the original(PDF) on 3 October 2008. Retrieved 6 October 2008.
- ^ "British Film Institute research project | School of History". Queen Mary University of London. Archived from the original on 24 August 2017. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
- ^ "BFI IMAX BFI". Archived from the original on 20 March 2021. Retrieved 12 March 2016.
Britain's biggest cinema screen – 20 m x 26 m, IMAX 2D and 3D, 70 mm and 35 mm film projectors
[citation needed] - from the original on 20 March 2021. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
- ^ "Education and research". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 20 March 2021. Retrieved 23 April 2008.
- ^ "BFI Film Academy Premier". Archived from the original on 10 December 2014. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
- ^ Katy Rice. "Brighton and Hove to take leading film industry role". The Argus. Archived from the original on 20 March 2021. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
- ^ "Nothing to stop us now: the BFI Film Academy's graduates". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 20 March 2021. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
- ^ "BFI". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 28 November 2019. Retrieved 13 April 2016.
- ^ Fabrizi, Elisabetta (ed.), The BFI Gallery Book, BFI 2011
- ^ Fabrizi, Elisabetta, 'Is This Cinema?', in 'Artists' Moving image in Britain since 1989', edited by Balsom, Erika, Perks, Sarah, Reynolds, Lucy, Paul Mellon Foundation/Yale University Press, London 2019
- ^ "Greatest global cinema on BFI Player". player.bfi.org.uk. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
- ^ "British Film Institute – GOV.UK". Government of the United Kingdom. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
- ^ "Governors". BFI. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
- ^ "Grants awarded under Section 70 of the Charities Act 2006". GOV.UK. Retrieved 27 July 2023.
- ^ Fabrizi, Elisabetta, (Ed.) 'The BFI Gallery Book', BFI 2011.
- ^ Masters, Tim (29 November 2016). "Basil Brush and Tiswas among 'at risk' TV shows, says BFI". BBC News. Archived from the original on 20 March 2021. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
- ^ Jones, Monique. "Women of Color Unite Expands #StartWith8 Mentorship Program To The UK". Shadow and Act.
- ^ Andrew Pulver (22 December 2015). "Warner Bros' Josh Berger appointed chair of BFI". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 20 March 2021. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
- ^ "Tim Richards announced as new Chair of the BFI". British Film Institute. 11 February 2021. Archived from the original on 20 March 2021. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
- ^ Ravindran, Manori; Ramachandran, Naman (15 August 2023). "Vue Boss Tim Richards to Step Down as Chair of British Film Institute". Variety. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
- ^ "Jay Hunt appointed as Chair of the BFI". BFI. Retrieved 12 January 2024.
- ^ "Ben Roberts appointed Chief Executive, BFI | BFI". Archived from the original on 20 March 2021. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
External links
- Official website
- BFI Screenonline website