Cinema Retro has received the following press release from the British Film Institute. It's sure to gladden the hearts of classic movie lovers the world over:
BFI National Film Centre gets the green
light
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DCMS pledges £45 million capital
spend
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- Everyone in Britain to benefit from new centre for film
- Visionary new digital hub you can plug into from home
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The BFI announces today that it is proceeding with its plan to
build a visionary new film centre on London’s South Bank. The decision to move
forward comes as the Culture Secretary, Ben Bradshaw, announced a
£45 million capital investment from Government in the
project.
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The BFI’s ambition is to create a world-leading centre for the
study, enjoyment and celebration of film and television. The money pledged from
Government follows an earlier investment promise of £5 million in the project
from the London Mayor through the LDA. It secures the next phase of the project
which is to design and planning, and will go towards helping fund the
construction of the new centre which is to be developed on the site of
Hungerford car park.Â
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Amanda Nevill, director of the BFI, said:
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‘This is hugely exciting news for film culture in Britain, for
the whole of the British film industry and a positive turning point in the
history of the BFI. Film is one of the greatest art forms of today and
universally popular. It is also a British success story - London and the UK are
at the centre of the global film industry.
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“We will be creating something that doesn’t exist anywhere
else in the world, precisely because we can. It will build on the BFI’s 75 year
legacy, bringing together the greatest collections of film on earth with all the
excitement and stimulation of emerging cinema into the most creative and
inclusive programmes. It will be a digital hub, working with partners across the
UK to share and exchange those programmes. We are a step closer in our ambition
to inspire and excite audiences everywhere in a new digital
Britain.â€
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John Woodward, chief executive of the UK Film Council which
funds the BFI, said:
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“This is a key milestone on the road towards the UK Film
Council and the BFI’s shared objective of transforming the cultural film
offering to UK citizens in the digital age. Not only will film now have a
fitting home on the best arts campus in the world, but the development will use
digital to open up the archive and all the other film treasures that the BFI
holds for the benefit of everyone in the UK.â€
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The BFI’s vision
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‘Something as powerful as film
should be celebrated and understood – that is why the BFI exists – if it didn’t
exist we would be busy inventing it'
Anthony
Minghella
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Film has never been so exciting, or more important.
Increasingly more and more of the information we use to navigate daily life
comes through the moving image. It is the medium of the moment - everyone is
engaged in it, watching it, making it, uploading and downloading it. For
young people especially, film is the communication medium of the 21st century.
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The importance of film ('film' taken to express the whole
spectrum of moving image) in our daily lives has been transformed through
digital technology. Today's society engages with film in ways which would
have been unimaginable even five years ago, never mind when the BFI was founded
75 years ago.
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The BFI is a cultural body admired and emulated the world over
for the breadth of joined-up activity from the BFI National Archive and The
National Film Theatre – now BFI Southbank - to the BFI London Film Festival, its
national distribution, events, education activities and publishing.
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All of this has been at the heart of film in this country for
over 75 years.
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Through the BFI, Britain boasts a film archive which is the
envy of the world. It provides a tantalising window into how the people of
Britain live, work and play from rare glimpses of an early moving Edwardian
world, through the classic and loved films of British cinema, broadening out to
encompass important collections of American, Chinese, Russian, cultural
cinema. The archive of film is brought to life by the equally important
and enlightening letters, papers and scripts, and the often ravishingly
beautiful photograph and poster collections. It is an ever growing, living
collection - the film premiere of tonight becoming next months archive
treasure.
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But with digital capability the BFI can deliver much
more.Â
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There has never been a more exciting moment nor a more
exciting opportunity for the BFI, nor a more pressing need for the BFI to step
up and modernise in response to this public eager for more.
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What we propose is a dramatic transformation of the BFI which
will deliver a compelling, exciting and vibrant vision for the future of film
culture in the UK, reaching more people, more efficiently.
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It is a vision which will address head on the very real issues
the BFI faces with dilapidate, disparate and expensive estate, technical
obsolescence and antediluvian public facilities. The vision arrests a spiral of
decline so we can prioritise investment in public services instead.
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It is a vision which allows us to compete equally on an
international stage.Â
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And, the vision is unique because the BFI, unlike similar
organisations in any other country in the world, can build on the legacy of 75
years and bring together the greatest collections of film on earth with the
excitement and stimulation of emerging cinema, with the most creative and
inclusive experiences and programmes, with the aim of fostering a passionate
quest for individual learning and scholarship in everyone.
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“It would enable us all in the
British film community to reach our dream to have one building, one National
Film Centre, where all the tributaries that make up the extraordinary vibrant
British film community at the moment can be housed. Because we have a glorious
opportunity, it seems to me, here in Britain, and one of the great things is
that the BFI is going to be leading that change.â€
Paul
Greengrass
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Our vision focuses around the creation of a BFI National Film
Centre, an international destination for film which is digitally connected,
wired to the world; and influenced as much by its virtual visitors as it is by
those who enter through the door.
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Although based in London the BFI centre will be emphatically
national. It will exchange programmes and knowledge with a wide range of
communities and partners right across the UK, constantly drawing on and updating
the BFI National Archive, the regional archives and the expanding Mediatheque
network.
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From this base, the BFI will champion film programmes which
have the power to change perspectives, which consider other histories, bring
different considerations to our own lives, new voices to challenge our
understanding of the world and our place in it, lend new eyes to see
differently.
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Every part of the BFI National Film Centre, from the cinemas
to the galleries, the displays to the research centre will appeal equally (but
in different ways) to the parent and child, the eminent scholar, the exacting
film enthusiast, the dismissive teenager, the expectant filmmaker, the demanding
culture vulture. It is designed as much for the casual 'drop-in' visitor as it
is for the dedicated visitor. What’s more, you will be able to join in virtually
wherever you live.
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It is here that you can encounter the real things that made
film and television history, legendary objects and papers, view films on line or
see film as intended on the big screen.
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It is also a genuine place of work, a centre of research,
creativity and production (of content by both real and remote visitors) which
produces all the centre’s programmes and the London Film Festival, cares
for the national collections, and supports distribution of film and
knowledge about British film culture in the UK and around the
world.
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Research and scholarship are the backbone of all public
programmes – and a new formal partnership with a consortium of HE institutions
will see students and scholars engaging with the National Collection as never
before.
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About the BFI
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The BFI is the nation’s cultural agency for film. Our mission
is to ensure that everyone has access to the broadest choice of film culture, no
matter where they live or how they want to access it.
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