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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
The BFI runs the
, including ''Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
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, and partially funded under the British Film Institute Act 1949.
Purpose
It 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 andworld cinema
World cinema is a term in film theory that refers to films made outside of the American motion picture industry, particularly those in opposition to the aesthetics and values of commercial American cinema.Nagib, Lúcia. "Towards a positive de ...
and to establish, care for and develop collections reflecting the moving image history and heritage of the United Kingdom.
BFI activities
Archive
The BFI maintains the world's largestfilm archive
An archive is an accumulation of Historical document, historical records or Historical source, materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located.
Archives contain primary source documents that have accumula ...
, the BFI National Archive
The BFI National Archive is a department of the British Film Institute, and one of the largest film archives in the world. It was founded as the National Film Library in 1935; its first curator was Ernest Lindgren. In 1955, its name became the N ...
, previously called National Film Library (1935–1955), National Film Archive (1955–1992), and National Film and Television Archive (1993–2006). The archive contains more than 50,000 fiction films, over 100,000 non-fiction titles, and around 625,000 television programmes. The majority of the collection is British material but it also features internationally significant holdings from around the world. The Archive also collects films which feature key British actors and the work of British directors.
Cinemas
The BFI runs the BFI Southbank
BFI Southbank (from 1951 to 2007, known as the National Film Theatre) is the leading repertory cinema in the UK, specialising in seasons of classic, independent and non-English language films. It is operated by the British Film Institute.
His ...
(formerly the National Film Theatre (NFT)) and the BFI IMAX
The BFI IMAX is an IMAX cinema in the South Bank district of London, just north of London Waterloo railway station, Waterloo station. It is owned and operated by the British Film Institute. From 2012 until 2022, it had been operated by Odeon Cin ...
cinema, both located on the south bank of the River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
in London. 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. 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.
Education
The BFI offers a range of education initiatives, in particular to support the teaching of film and media studies in schools. In late 2012, the BFI received money from theDepartment for Education
The Department for Education (DfE) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for child protection, child services, education (compulsory, further and higher education), apprenticeships and wider skills in England.
A Department ...
to create the BFI Film Academy Network for young people aged between 16 and 25. A residential scheme is held at the NFTS
The National Film and Television School (NFTS) is a film, television and games school established in 1971 and based at Beaconsfield Studios in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England. It is featured in the 2021 ranking by ''The Hollywood Repor ...
every year.
Festivals
The BFI runs the annualLondon Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 1957 and held in the United Kingdom, running for two weeks in October with co-operation from the British Film Institute. It screens more than 300 films, documentaries and sho ...
along with BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival and the youth-orientated Future Film Festival.
Other activities
The BFI publishes the monthly ''Sight & Sound
''Sight and Sound'' (also spelled ''Sight & Sound'') is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). It conducts the well-known, once-a-decade ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time, ongoing ...
'' magazine as well as films on Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...
, DVD and books. It runs the BFI National Library (a reference library), and maintains the BFI Film & TV Database and Summary of Information on Film and Television (SIFT), which are databases of credits, synopses and other information about film and television productions. SIFT has a collection of about 7 million still frame
In filmmaking, video production, animation, and related fields, a frame is one of the many '' still images'' which compose the complete '' moving picture''. The term is derived from the historical development of film stock, in which the sequenti ...
s from film and television.
The BFI has co-produced a number of television series featuring footage from the BFI National Archive, in partnership with the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon
''The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon'' is a BBC documentary series produced in conjunction with the British Film Institute. Three one-hour episodes were broadcast on BBC One in January 2005 and released on Region 2 DVD soon after.
The episodes ...
'', ''The Lost World of Friese-Greene
''The Lost World of Friese-Greene'' is a BBC documentary series produced in conjunction with the British Film Institute. Three one-hour episodes were broadcast on BBC Two in spring 2006.
The series, presented by Dan Cruickshank, retraces a ro ...
'', and ''The Lost World of Tibet
''The Lost World of Tibet'' is a BBC documentary film produced in conjunction with the British Film Institute. The 90-minute film was broadcast on BBC Two in November 2006.
The film is presented by Dan Cruickshank and features footage shot in ...
''.
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
BFI Southbank (from 1951 to 2007, known as the National Film Theatre) is the leading repertory cinema in the UK, specialising in seasons of classic, independent and non-English language films. It is operated by the British Film Institute.
His ...
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: Patrick Keiller
Patrick Keiller (born 1950) is a British film-maker, writer and lecturer.
Biography
Keiller was born in 1950, in Blackpool and studied at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. In 1979 he joined the Royal College of Art ...
's 'The City of the Future', Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard
Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard are British artists and filmmakers.
Life and work
Forsyth and Pollard met and began working collaboratively while studying Fine Art and Art Theory at Goldsmiths College, graduating together in 1995. They initially f ...
's 'RadioMania: An Abandoned Work' and Deimantas Narkevicious
Deimantas is a Lithuanian masculine given name
A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that perso ...
' 'Into the Unknown'. The Gallery also initiated projects by film-makers such as Michael Snow
Michael Snow (born December 10, 1928) is a Canadian artist working in a range of media including film, installation, sculpture, photography, and music. His best-known films are '' Wavelength'' (1967) and '' La Région Centrale'' (1971), with the ...
, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Apichatpong Weerasethakul ( th, อภิชาติพงศ์ วีระเศรษฐกุล; ; ) is a Thai independent film director, screenwriter, and film producer. Working outside the strict confines of the Thai film studio system ...
, Jane and Louise Wilson and John Akomfrah.
The BFI also operates a streaming service called ''BFI Player''. This streaming service offers a variety of niche and art films.
Organisation
History
The institute was founded in 1933. Despite its foundation resulting from a recommendation in a report on ''Film in National Life'', at that time the institute was a private company, though it has received public money throughout its history—from the Privy Council and Treasury until 1965 and the various culture departments since then. 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 theBritish Film Academy
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
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 BFI Production Board (1964-2000) was a state-funded film production fund managed by the British Film Institute (BFI) and "explicitly charged with backing work by new and uncommercial filmmakers." Emerging from the Experimental Film Fund, the BFI ...
.
The institute received a royal charter
A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but s ...
in 1983. This was updated in 2000, and in the same year the newly established UK Film Council
The UK Film Council (UKFC) was a non-departmental public body set up in 2000 to develop and promote the film industry in the UK. It was constituted as a private company limited by guarantee, owned by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and ...
took responsibility for providing the BFI's annual grant-in-aid (government subsidy). As an independent registered charity, the BFI is regulated by the Charity Commission and the Privy Council.
In 1988, the BFI opened the London Museum of the Moving Image
The Museum of the Moving Image is a media museum located in a former building of the historic Astoria Studios (now Kaufman Astoria Studios), in the Astoria neighborhood in Queens, New York City. The museum originally opened in 1988 as the Amer ...
(MOMI) on the South Bank. MOMI was acclaimed internationally and set new standards for education through entertainment, but subsequently it did not receive the high levels of continuing investment that might have enabled it to keep pace with technological developments and ever-rising audience expectations. The museum was "temporarily" closed in 1999 when the BFI stated that it would be re-sited. This did not happen, and MOMI's closure became permanent in 2002 when it was decided to redevelop the South Bank site. This redevelopment was itself then further delayed.
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 14 governors. The current chair is Josh Berger, who took up the post in February 2016. He succeededGreg Dyke
Gregory Dyke (born 20 May 1947) is a British media executive, football administrator, journalist, and broadcaster. Since the 1960s, Dyke has had a long career in the UK in print and then broadcast journalism. He is credited with introducing ' ...
, who took office on 1 March 2008. Dyke succeeded the late Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella, (6 January 195418 March 2008) was a British film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was chairman of the board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007.
He won the Academy Award for Best Directo ...
(film director), who was chair from 2003 until 31 December 2007. The chair of the board is appointed by the BFI's own Board of Governors but requires the consent of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, also referred to as the culture secretary, is a Secretary of State (United Kingdom), secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for strateg ...
. Other Governors are co-opted by existing board members when required (but if one of these is appointed Deputy Chair, that appointment is subject to ratification by the Secretary of State).
The BFI operates with three sources of income. The largest is public money allocated by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
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. In 2011–12, this funding amounted to approximately £20m. The second largest source is commercial activity such as receipts from ticket sales at BFI Southbank or the BFI London IMAX theatre (£5m in 2007), sales of DVDs, etc. Thirdly, grants and sponsorship of around £5m are obtained from various sources, including National Lottery funding grants, private sponsors and through donations ( J. Paul Getty, Jr. donated around £1m in his will following his death in 2003). The BFI is also the distributor for all Lottery funds for film (in 2011–12 this amounted to c.£25m).
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 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, as voted for by a range of industry figures.
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 (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.
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.
During 2009, the UK Film Council
The UK Film Council (UKFC) was a non-departmental public body set up in 2000 to develop and promote the film industry in the UK. It was constituted as a private company limited by guarantee, owned by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and ...
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.
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
The Department for Education (DfE) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for child protection, child services, education (compulsory, further and higher education), apprenticeships and wider skills in England.
A Department ...
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
Creative Scotland ( gd, Alba Chruthachail ; sco, Creative Scotlan) is the development body for the arts and creative industries in Scotland. Based in Edinburgh, it is an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government.
The o ...
and Northern Ireland Screen
Northern Ireland Screen is the national screen agency for Northern Ireland. The agency's purpose is to promote the development of a sustainable film, animation and television production industry.About Us > Overview Northern Ireland Screen website, ...
.
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.
The BFI recently announced that it is teaming up with American diversity and inclusion program #StartWith8Hollywood founded by Thuc Doan Nguyen to make it global.
BFI Chair
*George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 5th Duke of Sutherland
George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 5th Duke of Sutherland, KT, PC (29 August 1888 – 1 February 1963), styled Earl Gower until 1892 and Marquess of Stafford between 1892 and 1913, was a British courtier, patron of the film industr ...
(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
Cecil Harmsworth King (20 February 1901 – 17 April 1987) was Chairman of Daily Mirror Newspapers, Sunday Pictorial Newspapers and the International Publishing Corporation (1963–1968), and a director at the Bank of England (1965–1968).
Bio ...
(1948–1952)
* S. C. Roberts (1952–1956)
* Sylvester Gates (1956–1964)
* Sir William Coldstream
Sir William Menzies Coldstream, CBE (28 February 1908 – 18 February 1987) was an English realist painter and a long-standing art teacher.
Biography
Coldstream was born at Belford, Northumberland, in northern England, the second son of co ...
(1964–1971)
* Sir Denis Forman
Sir John Denis Forman (13 October 1917 – 24 February 2013) was a Scottish executive in the British television industry long associated with the ITV contractor Granada, and with various charitable and governmental bodies in the arts.
Career
Fo ...
(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
Jeremy Jack Thomas, CBE (born 26 July 1949) is a British film producer, founder and chairman of Recorded Picture Company. He produced Bernardo Bertolucci's ''The Last Emperor'', which won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2006 he rec ...
(1993–1997)
* Sir Alan Parker
Sir Alan William Parker (14 February 1944 – 31 July 2020) was an English filmmaker. His early career, beginning in his late teens, was spent as a copywriter and director of television advertisements. After about ten years of filming adverts ...
(1998–1999)
* Joan Bakewell
Joan Dawson Bakewell, Baroness Bakewell, (''née'' Rowlands; born 16 April 1933), is an English journalist, television presenter and Labour Party peer. Baroness Bakewell is president of Birkbeck, University of London; she is also an author a ...
(1999–2002)
* Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella, (6 January 195418 March 2008) was a British film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was chairman of the board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007.
He won the Academy Award for Best Directo ...
(2003–2007)
* Roger Laughton (Acting) (2008)
* Greg Dyke
Gregory Dyke (born 20 May 1947) is a British media executive, football administrator, journalist, and broadcaster. Since the 1960s, Dyke has had a long career in the UK in print and then broadcast journalism. He is credited with introducing ' ...
(2008–2016)
* Josh Berger (2016–2021)
* Tim Richards (2021–)
BFI directors
* J. W. Brown (1933–1936) * Oliver Bell (1936–1949) *Denis Forman
Sir John Denis Forman (13 October 1917 – 24 February 2013) was a Scottish executive in the British television industry long associated with the ITV contractor Granada, and with various charitable and governmental bodies in the arts.
Career
Fo ...
(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
Amanda Elizabeth Nevill, (born 21 March 1957) is the former Chief Executive of the British Film Institute.
Early life and education
Nevill was born on 21 March 1957. She was educated in Yorkshire and Paris.
Career
Her first job, in 1976, was ...
(2003–2020)
* Ben Roberts (2020–present)
See also
* BFI The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time *BFI 75 Most Wanted
The BFI 75 Most Wanted is a list compiled in 2010 by the British Film Institute of the most sought-after British feature films not held in the BFI National Archive, and classified as "missing, believed lost". The films chosen range from quota qu ...
– the most sought-after films currently missing from the BFI archive
* BFI Flipside
BFI Flipside is a series of Dual Format Editions (DVD and Blu-ray released together) which was launched in May 2009 and is published by the British Film Institute's Video label. The series so far features a total of 65 feature and short films, as ...
– the DVD/Blu-ray collection dedicated to telling the alternative history of British film
* BFI Top 100 British films
In 1999, the British Film Institute surveyed 1,000 people from the world of British film and television to produce a list of the greatest British films of the 20th century. Voters were asked to choose up to 100 films that were "culturally British". ...
* BFI TV 100
The BFI TV 100 is a list of 100 television programmes or series that was compiled in 2000 by the British Film Institute (BFI), as chosen by a poll of industry professionals, with the aim to determine the best British television programmes of any ...
– a list of the best British television programmes
* Fellows of the British Film Institute
* Cinema of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had a significant film industry for over a century. While film production reached an all-time high in 1936, the "golden age" of British cinema is usually thought to have occurred in the 1940s, during which the directors D ...
* Independent Cinema in the United Kingdom
* Screenonline
Screenonline is a website about the history of British film, television and social history as documented by film and television. The project has been developed by the British Film Institute and funded by a £1.2 million grant from the National Lo ...
– a history website run by the BFI external link below
* List of film institutes
* Association of European Film Archives and Cinematheques The Association of European Cinematheques (French: Association des Cinémathèques Européennes - ACE) is an affiliation of 49 European national and regional film archives founded in 1991. Its role is to safeguard the European film heritage and make ...
* Sutherland Trophy
The Sutherland Trophy was created in 1958 by the British Film Institute as an annual award for "the maker of the most original and imaginative film introduced at the National Film Theatre during the year".
History
In 1997, the criteria changed to ...
annual BFI award for "the maker of the most original and imaginative film introduced at the National Film Theatre during the year"
References
External links
* {{Authority control 1933 establishments in the United Kingdom Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Film archives in the United Kingdom Film organisations in the United Kingdom History of television in the United Kingdom IMAX venues Non-departmental public bodies of the United Kingdom government Organisations based in the London Borough of Camden Organizations established in 1933 Television organisations in the United Kingdom Television archives in the United Kingdom