Peter Greenaway, director of Rotterdam screeners The Pillow Book and The Bridge Celebration, has condemned the British government's handling of National Lottery film financing funds as "a joke." Adam Minns reports.
Speaking from the International Film Festival of Rotterdam, the veteran British film maker attacked the government's suitability to be in a position to control funding for films. "It is deciding whether a film should receive funds from this high-powered, esoteric coffer, when it couldn't care less about cinema," he said. "When this magnificent body that we have governing us finally falls, I, for one, will breathe a sigh of relief."
His attack comes at a time when the Arts Council of England, which administers lottery funding, has been slammed in British newspapers for its choice of films to receive financing. Film Four's True Blue, for example, got lottery investment and received scathing reviews.
Ironic
Greenaway also criticized how lottery money has contributed to a major production boom at a time when the total number of films released in the UK has failed to rise correspondingly. EDI calculates 274 films on general release in 1994 and 268 in 1996. Already, only half of British films are finding distributors within a year of completion, according to British Film Institute figures. Production levels are set to rise still further this year with the creation of four so-called film 'franchises', in effect mini-studios, each getting up to US$39 million.
"Its deeply ironic," said Greenaway. "There were around 75 films made in the UK last year. That was already too many."
Honorary member
He saw no way to solve the situation. "If I knew how to do that, I'd be in a position to do something like David Puttnam [a member of the National Lottery Advisory Panel]. Films are always something of a lottery. You make what you think is the ideal film, you think you have finally cracked the nut, and nobody likes it. Then you knock something out in a week and everybody loves it."
Greenaway, to be made an honorary member of Utrecht University on 26 March, refused to rule out applying for lottery funding for his new multimedia production, Tulse Luper's Suitcase. The 55 year-old director maintained he would leave that decision to his longstanding Dutch producer Kees Kasander. *
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