How the British film industry is bouncing back

As the days chill and shorten, the cinema calls. Yet in recent years, with the US writers’ strike and the pandemic, our film diet seems to have largely consisted of super-hero action movies, but all that is changing.

Helen Simmons is a successful screenwriter and a Screen Star of Tomorrow. Her features include the BAFTA-nominated Hoard, and the Crystal Bear-winning Last Swim, which she also co-wrote. She’s a director of Erebus Productions, which is making 100 Nights of Hero, based on the graphic novel, and A Hand Rises, Louise Stern’s debut set in a close-knit deaf community. 

“For a while, everyone thought they should be doing TV, but now television’s hit a bit of a rough patch,” says Helen. “There’s less money, things are more expensive, so it’s much harder for young producers and newer companies to break in. Also, TV will restrict itself to one show a year on a particular topic, whereas cinema’s scope is much broader, and it’s more about the author and director — the style, the vision and how the story’s told. It feels like there’s  an appetite for taking risks again, and people  are going back into film after a period of super-safe superhero films.”

Steve Milne is Vice Chairman of Cinelab,  the UK’s biggest major film lab, which also processes digital movies. “There’s a resurgence of people wanting to shoot on film, a bit like vinyl making a comeback,” he says. “Anora and The Brutalist were shot on film, and the Narnia film will also be on celluloid. The size of UK studio space has doubled in a few years. We have wonderful crews and creativity, and people like Tom Cruise love being here for the culture. There are so many exciting new autumn releases, from Downton Abbey to My Oxford Year, and coming later is Martin McDonagh’s thriller, Wild Horse Nine, starring Sam Rockwell and shot on Easter Island, which  is stunningly cinematic.”

Judy Wells, PR Director at the BFI (British Film Institute), echoes Steve’s enthusiasm, saying, “The UK has an enviable, state-of-the-art infrastructure with studios across our nation, world-class crews, superb technical expertise, cutting-edge post-production and VFX facilities, and of course some of the most iconic locations in the world.”

The BFI is a major supporter of the British film industry and is known for its cultural programmes at BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX, alongside its popular London Film Festival in October. It’s also the UK’s National Lottery Distributor for film, and it lobbied for the enhanced tax credit, introduced by the Government in April, which allows productions with a budget of £15 million to receive 40 per cent tax relief. “The industry support was overwhelming, from Ridley Scott and Barbara Broccoli to Tilda Swinton and Mike Leigh,” says Judy. “The Government also increased funding for the UK Global Screen Fund, which provides essential support for UK films to succeed here and internationally.”

Hilary Bevan Jones is an eminent television producer who instigated the annual Watersprite Festival to showcase short films and the best student talent from around the world. “This year, we had 2,000 submissions from over 100 countries and we hosted 30,000 from 79 countries in-person and online,” she says. “The festival culminated in our Awards Ceremony, supported by Amazon MGM Studios, and the nominated films were breathtaking. There’s such an appetite for  film with lots of new talent coming through.”

Meanwhile, Erebus Productions is about to shoot Glory B, a Greek-Italian-UK co-production, and early next year, will shoot the follow-up to Hoard, which had its world premiere at Venice Critics Week and won four awards.

“In a way, Brexit and the current state of Hollywood have made British producers look towards Europe to foster relationships,” says Helen, “and the BFI’s Global Screen Fund helps international co-productions, which is really buoying up the kind of work we’re doing with the Italians and Greeks.”

“Independent film is where stories about and by people from the UK are told, reflecting the rich diversity of lives in Britain and where creative risk-taking happens,” adds Judy.  
“The independent sector creates jobs and allows filmmakers, crews and actors to learn their skills — Christopher Nolan, for example, who directed Oppenheimer and is now making The Odyssey, started his career in  UK independent film, as did Lynne Ramsay, who is currently working in the US on her much-anticipated Die, My Love, starring Jennifer Lawrence.”

Judy’s pick of upcoming films supported by the Global Screen Fund are Saipan, a UK-Irish co-production, starring Steve Coogan, and The Occupant from the UK, Netherlands and Georgia. Other films to watch include Islands, a thriller set in the Canary Islands; Urchin, which won Frank Dillane the Best Actor award in Un Certain Regard at Cannes; My Father’s Shadow, a UK-Nigerian co-production; biker film Pillion, starring Alexander Skarsgård; and Brides, the first film from the Young Vic’s artistic director, Nadia Fall. 

“Meanwhile, we’re seeing independent productions shooting here, like Giant, a biopic about Prince Naseem Hamed starring Pierce Brosnan and Fady Elsayed. From the autumn, the cinema will be a truly exciting place to be.”

“While it’s still challenging to finance a film, there’s a new optimistic mood, and our excellent resources and crews are continuing to attract filmmakers and production companies worldwide. Many films and TV shows are made here now, from Mission Impossible, Barbie and Wicked to Bridgerton, Sex Education and Game of Thrones. 

Five to watch: 

Hamnet

Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley star in this eagerly awaited adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel about Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes, mourning the death of their son, Hamnet, to plague. Co-produced by Sam Mendes’s production company, Neal Street, Chloé Zhao, Oscar-winning director of Nomadland, directs. 

The Choral

Acclaimed theatre director Nicholas Hytner collaborates once again with Alan Bennett on his comic screenplay set in 1916 about two members of a Yorkshire choral society, played by Ralph Fiennes and Simon Russell Beale, who recruit teenagers to perform Edward Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius. 

Mother's Pride

This heartfelt comedy is about a struggling pub in a divided community. A grieving family’s lives are changed by brewing real ale and entering the Great British beer awards. Martin Clunes and James Buckley lead the cast. 

The Thing with Feathers

Benedict Cumberbatch stars in this eerie drama, adapted from Max Porter’s classic 2015 novel, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, in which a father and his sons cope with the sudden loss of their wife and mother, and grief is personified as a crow. 

Rabbit Trap 

In this psychological horror film set in 1973, Dev Patel and Rosy McEwen star as a married couple relocating to an isolated cabin in Wales. They accidentally stumble into a ring of mischievous fairies, leading to the disturbing appearance of a strange, ill-intentioned child.