UK creative industries minister Chris Bryant underlined the government’s vision for supporting the UK film industry in an emphatic speech at the Cannes Film Festival on May 16.
“We want to be the best place in the world to make film,” pointing towards the roles played by local authorities, film studios, business rates for studios, and promoting a deep pool of talent.
He encouraged the industry to continue to access funding from “the United States of America, or from India, or Nigeria, or anywhere else in the world, or France.
”I also want to us to make films where the intellectual property stays in the UK and people make a long-term living. That’s what we’re focused on.”
Bryant was speaking at the United reception, arranged jointly by BFI, Bafta, BBC Film and Film4.
“Film is nearly always a multinational thing. You cannot create borders around filmmaking.”
“Where Britain really excels is where we’re at the crossroads of nations. Whether it’s a film like Slumdog Millionaire, it’s quintessentially British but not filmed in the UK at all.
”Or Conclave. Who would have thought there would be a British film about the election of a pope? And yet it’s quintessentially British, not only because of the acting talent, but because of the way it tells its story, and the story it comes from, the novel by Robert Harris.
“That’s part of why we are exceptional, and we create more miracles than anybody else, that internationalism we embrace. And of course, that includes the United States of America – thank god for Tom Cruise [several Mission Impossible films shot in the UK],
The even bigger miracle is any of you ever get to make a film at all, because the financing process is so laborious and complicated. I want you to give yourself a round of applause for every single miracle you’ve been involved in. I also want to say the UK is perhaps the most miraculous place in the world when it comes to film.”
“The UK will continue making miraculous movies and make miracles in this industry for many, many years to come. We’re determined to do that…. We want to make it easier to raise finance and make the great miracles that we know you can. But we also want to make sure British audiences get to see films in the front of big screens in cinemas.”
