The British Film Institute Thread

[John Hodson]

I posted the link to this piece - Times look bleak for the BFI - in the 'Hammer' thread (the trashing of the BFI's supposed restoration of 'Dracula' in the link below being particularly interesting) and it was suggested that the BFI could do with a thread all it's own...so here it is.

You might also like to read through the various posts at Film Archive Action, which says:

Film Archive Action is the website of the Custodes Lucis Group.

The Custodes Lucis (The Guardians Of Light) are campaigning against the changes being imposed on the National Film and Television Archive by its parent body, the British Film Institute.

These changes mean that the NFTVA will no longer be the national heritage moving image collection, but is being reduced to the status of a film library to be used by the BFI for its own purposes. Acquisition and preservation policies will be designed to suit the BFI's as yet undefined 'cultural plan'. The needs of researchers will be ignored: cataloguing the Archive's holdings in order to provide good documentation has already been reduced to virtually nothing. A third of the film technicians at the Archive's Conservation Centre were made redundant last year; the BFI has not yet replaced their work with any alternative procedures for conserving and preserving the films. This world-renowned collection is now threatened with destruction through ignorance and neglect.

Ooo-er...observations anyone?