Scottish Film Talent Deserves Proper Funding
Scotland produces talent for the film industry out of proportion to its size and population. From actors to directors, producers, authors and scriptwriters; from Ewan McGregor to Brian Cox; from Lynne Ramsay to Andrew Macdonald to Bill Forsyth to Red Road's Andrea Arnold, the country consistently produces film talent as abundantly as it does in the fields of theatre, music and dance.
However, although Scotland has five official performing arts companies, designated as "national companies", paid for by the public purse - two orchestras, a ballet company, an opera and, newly, a national theatre - our national provision ignores the film industry.
There is Scottish Screen, of course, which has a pittance to spend each year, and it is shortly to disappear, to be merged with the Scottish Arts Council and become a new body, Creative Scotland. Last year 50 film-makers protested against the change, arguing that film is a distinct and precious art form that requires special treatment; they were ignored.
One of Scottish Screen's main problems was that its funding was so low - the Scottish Executive gives it only £3m a year. In terms of Hollywood, or even the budgets of production companies in London, that is less than peanuts.
The film "industry" in Scotland, such as it is, lives in a world of low budgets, the vital support of Channel Four or the BBC, and production companies prepared to cobble together a budget from as many disparate sources as possible. Meanwhile, because of a lack of financial incentive - whether it be in decent public funds, or a lack of tax breaks - big, headline-grabbing productions are lost to Ireland, the Isle of Man and eastern Europe. Scotland needs to, and can, punch its weight in Europe and beyond, and a national film company armed with around £15m of public cash a year (which is only roughly what the NTS and Scottish Opera cost) would be able to. Ideally, it would exist in conjunction with a stably funded and supported Edinburgh Film Festival, with both together recognised as a cultural and economic asset in themselves.
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