Calls on UK Industry to get in touch with concerns.
The British Film Institute (BFI), the UK’s lead organization for film, is convening its Screen Sector Taskforce to help deal with the huge impact of the coronavirus.
In a lengthy missive to industry, BFI Chief Executive Ben Roberts acknowledged the “huge” and “unprecedented challenge to our business” and said that the BFI was in regular conversation with the government about how to mitigate the significant ramifications for companies and individuals.
The BFI said it is focused “on ensuring the resilience of the industry and on tackling the huge range of short to mid-term financial, cultural and societal challenges – not least to the exhibition and freelance sectors who are likely to be hit hardest most immediately by the crisis.”
The BFI’s task force, which was already in existence, is a “pan industry group, representing the breadth of the screen industries, from production to distribution and bodies representing animation, VFX, skills and studios from across the UK”.
In its letter to the industry, the BFI further noted, “The BFI is in constant communication with colleagues in Government and with other funders across the sector, to ensure we all fully understand the ramifications of the most critical issues, and help shape measures to address them. We have an already established Screen Sector Taskforce which will be convening to coordinate our conversation with Government and discuss the potential mitigations. We also urge practitioners across the industry and cultural sector to contact us with their key concerns and have set up an email address as a centralised point for all enquires covid-19.queries@bfi.org.uk to feed into our impact response recommendations.
As a funder, we will be as supportive and flexible as possible across existing funding arrangements, including the ability of those organisations and projects to meet contractual requirements.
As a production financier, we are obviously supporting our filmmakers with advice on a case by case basis. They are all different projects, each case is different and complex with completely different variables, so there isn’t one size fits all guidance, and we are advising them through these very particular challenges as best we can.
The BFI is working hard to support everyone across the sector during this extremely challenging time and we will update you with more news and information when we can.”
– Courtesy: Deadline
