Memorandum submitted by The Independent
Film Parliament
PROVISION OF
FILM FOR
CHILDREN
The Independent Film Parliament welcomes the
current enquiry by the Select Committee into Public Broadcasting
and the chance to make this submission with specific regard to
the provision of film for children.
The following contexts and recommendations have
been developed through the work of the Independent Film Parliament
(Appendix 1), and in particular following the open forum held
at the Barbican London Children's Film Festival in November last
year, "Are Children Being Served?" (Appendix 2).
A full report on provision of film and drama
for children will be available in February 2007.
Definitions
The age parameters used in defining a child
differ depending on the institution. For the purposes of this
report children are between the age of 0-14.
In the era of convergence, stories are being
told on screen in lengths varying from less than a minute to more
than two hours. For the purposes of this report we are primarily
concerned with longer form feature film and drama.
CORE CONCERNS
1. Feature film and filmed drama should
be regarded as a major art form, and therefore an essential part
of British culture and heritage. Amongst the arts, film and moving
image more generally have been shown to be the most influential
source of information for children and yet this art form is often
not given the priority and funding by government agencies which
it deserves. For children, what is at stake is the chance to engage,
empathise and reflect on their own culture by travelling alongside
fully developed characters in all the illuminating contexts that
a good film/drama script can offer.
2. We are concerned that the specific benefits
of film for children are not being recognised, nor are children's
entitlements being delivered. The Government acknowledges the
major role which culture plays in delivering the aims of its consultation
exercise "Every Child Matters", and on its website the
Department of Culture Media and Sport claims a central role in
enabling the outcomes for children particularly in "enjoying
and achieving and making a positive contribution", ensuring
diversity and providing after school activities. However, a search
for film produces only one result on the dedicated site, and the
UK Film Council, the Government's principal agency for advising
and delivering policy in this significant creative industry, is
not even listed as a partner.
3. Given the diversity of the communities
within the UK, and the internationalisation of our culture, children
should travel through their screens to the furthest places in
the world. They should have access to the diversity of children's
films produced by the rest of the world and to the variety of
narrative forms/film languages which is available. In this respect,
does the government adequately recognise the potential for film
to build social inclusion of grassroots communities and their
developing children?
4. Whilst it is understandable that English
language films are regarded as most accessible to the majority
of the British children's audience it does not follow that children
who have the ability to read cannot enjoy sub-titled films. There
is widespread evidence from the UK's various films festivals for
children and from long-term provision by the British Film Institute
that young children are perfectly capable of reading subtitles
when they are fully engaged in watching a high-quality film. This
suggests that it is a marketing prejudice which is informing the
currently limited range of acquisitions by broadcast and satellite
companies.
5. As with other art forms, it is essential
to ensure that all children have some experience of non-mainstream
film from an early age: this should be regarded as an entitlement.
Cultural breadth is a key element of the Charter for Media Literacy,
a welcome to extend media literacy and to develop audiences. Public
Service Broadcasting has a key role to play in delivering this,
and should continue to develop innovative ways to work with schools
to reach diverse, and large-scale audiences.
6. In a recent report commissioned for the
UK Film Council, Jim Barratt concluded that of all audience sectors,
it is children between the ages of 3-4 who are least well served
in terms of public expenditure on film education and film culture
generally. Given the current lack of confidence and lack of funding,
public or private, for the development or production of new feature
films for children in the UK, Public Service Broadcasting has
a critical role to play in changing this situation. It can incentivise
greater production through investment and co-production with other
partners in the UK market place, including independent production
companies and the UK Film Council. Last year, statistics provided
by the UK Film Council record the paucity and lack of diversity
of what is currently produced. Of 400 cinema releases only 19
could be classified for children between the ages of 3-2. Of these
five are not in the English language, and only three were classified
as British—Valiant, Lassie and Wallace
and Grommit—all of which were co-productions with the
United States.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. The remit for public service broadcasters
should carry specific obligations for the production of high quality,
indigenous films for children
2. The remit for public service broadcasters
should carry specific obligations for the acquisition and screening
of foreign films including a significant number of non—English
language productions. These should include shorts, drama and full-length
feature film.
3. Public Service Broadcasters should be
specifically required to co-produce, develop schemes and collaborate
with UK film agencies to promote a live and diverse film culture
for children in this country.
4. Public Service Broadcasters should be
urged to collaborate with existing film festivals dedicated to
children's film, and to enable the longer-term distribution to
a wider audience of a percentage of the films that are shown at
these festivals.
5. Public Service Providers should engage
with the objectives of the European Commission's forthcoming Media
Literacy policy, and play an active role with other agencies delivering
creative, cognitive and cultural skills to children through film.
This would include contribution to education initiatives feeding
into the Primary School curriculum, taking into account children's
cultural entitlement with regard to film.
6. Public Service requirements should apply
to terrestial and non-terrestial, public and commercial providers
alike.
7. Satellite and telecom companies should
also be required to contribute to the resources necessary to fund
public service requirements. In France, for instance, France Telecom
contributes 10% of its annual turnover from Video on Demand to
film production.
January 2007
APPENDIX 1
THE INDEPENDENT
FILM PARLIAMENT
In July 2003 a new assembly was launched, The
Independent Film Parliament. It offers a unique opportunity for
those sustaining our most innovative, challenging and independently-minded
cinema to develop and share ideas on structures and policy in
an open, public forum. The moving image has the power to bring
understanding and to influence constructive change in our divided
world. This forum, whilst recognising the essential role played
by the mainstream industry, aims to feedback from the less visible,
specialist or cultural sector, in the interest of developing audiences
and maintaining access on screen to the widest diversity of voices,
forms and perspective.
Principal Aims:
— to be a consultation partner in audiovisual
matters covering film and broadcasting alongside other organisations
such as The UK Film Council, The British Screen Advisory Council,
The Creators' Rights Alliance, PACT, The Director's Guild of Great
Britain, BECTU... ;
— to serve the specialist/cultural
film sector, addressing a wide range of film forms including artists'
film and video, documentary, student production, animation and
feature film;
— to feedback from different areas
of the specialist/cultural sector including education and training,
development and production, exhibition and distribution;
— to include regional, cultural, and
ethnic issues of diversity;
— to keep debate open on future policy
options with regard to UK, Europe and beyond;
— to seek a variety of hosts so that
Parliaments can be held in different UK regions;
— to be anchored with an academic institution
for research and archival purposes, offering information to the
widest community; and
— to assemble annually or bi-annually
to feed back on film policy and initiatives.
Reports with recommendations from the two Parliaments,
(July 2003 at the Cambridge Film Festival and November 2005, at
Institut Francais, London) were discussed with the Film Committee
at the Department of Culture Media and Sport, senior staff at
the UK Film Council, PACT and other industry organisations. They
were published by The British Journal of Film and Television and
featured in Vertigo magazine.
APPENDIX 2
Are Children Being Served?
This forum was brought together by the IFP as
part of the Barbican London Children's Film Festival with support
from the UK Film Council, PAL Performing Arts Labs and the Goethe
Institute. It aimed to give audiences and industry delegates the
chance to feedback on current policy for a diverse, children's
film culture. A full report with recommendations is in prepartion.
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