Northern Alliance - BFI

All of the entities in the table above deal to some degree with individual short films
and the individuals who make them. To complete the picture of the UK Film Council‟s
support for short filmmaking, the roles of two further units within the UK Film
Council should be considered: its Monitoring Unit and the UK Partnerships
Department. Neither is explicitly tasked with dealing with individual filmmakers or
films, but both play important roles in the provision of the UK Film Council‟s support.
The UK Film Council‟s Monitoring Department gathers and analyses information
about the UK Film Council‟s activity, in order to aid the assessment of its
effectiveness and inform its future practice. It does not, however, have lead
responsibility for the collection of data or the development of systems to ensure such
data is comprehensive. (See section 4.2 and Appendix XII for further discussion of
this topic).
In addition to the £5.9 million invested directly in short film programmes, the UK
Film Council has made available significant blocks of funding for its partners to invest
in short films. This has principally been via RIFE, administered by the UK Partnerships
Department. The total amount of RIFE funding administered by Regional Screen
Agencies to support short filmmaking is around £300,000 a year.
3.5 The UK Film Council‟s activities in respect of access and diversity
Diversity is a policy priority for the UK Film Council. This is reflected in the objectives
of all the NCF‟s short schemes. 20 The numbers of awardees from ethnic minority
backgrounds and people with a disability are increasingly represented 21 among
filmmakers supported by the Digital Shorts programme in recent years.
20 Digital Shorts guidelines to applications by strategic partners (2008) state: “By 2010 we hope
that 50% of our applications and films will be made by female directors, 25% by minority ethnic directors
and 4% by disabled directors.”
21 Source: UK Film Council official collected statistics.
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