The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves independent and mainstream filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, distribution, and education. It is sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and partially funded under the British Film Institute Act 1949.

Activities

Purpose

The BFI was established in 1933 to encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the UK to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and manners, to promote education about film, television and the moving image generally, and their impact on society, to promote access to and appreciation of the widest possible range of British and world cinema and to establish, care for and develop collections reflecting the moving image history, heritage and culture of the United Kingdom.

Archive

The BFI maintains the world's largest film archive, the BFI National Archive, previously called National Film Library (1935–1955), National Film Archive (1955–1992), and National Film and Television Archive (1993–2006). The archive contains more than 50,000 fiction films, over 100,000 non-fiction titles, and around 625,000 television programmes. The majority of the collection is British material but it also features internationally significant holdings from around the world. The archive also holds documents which feature key actors and the work of film makers.

Cinemas

thumb|right|[[BFI IMAX cinema]]

The BFI runs the BFI Southbank (formerly the National Film Theatre (NFT)) and the BFI IMAX cinema, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London. The IMAX has the largest cinema screen in the UK and shows popular recent releases and short films showcasing its technology, which includes IMAX 70mm screenings, IMAX 3D screenings and 11,600 watts of digital surround sound. BFI Southbank shows films from all over the world, particularly critically acclaimed historical and specialised films that may not otherwise get a cinema showing. The BFI also distributes archival and cultural cinema to other venues – each year to more than 800 venues all across the UK, as well as to a substantial number of overseas venues.

Education

The BFI offers a range of education initiatives, in particular to support the teaching of film and media studies in schools. In late 2012, the BFI received money from the Department for Education to create the BFI Film Academy Network for young people aged between 16 and 25. A residential scheme is held at the National Film and Television School (NFTS) every year.

Festivals

The BFI runs the annual London Film Festival along with BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival and the youth-orientated Future Film Festival.

Other activities

:See also :Category:British Film Institute films

The BFI publishes the monthly magazine Sight & Sound, as well as films on Blu-ray, DVD and books. It runs the BFI Reuben Library (a free reference library open to the public at BFI Southbank), and maintains the BFI Film & TV Database and Summary of Information on Film and Television (SIFT), which are databases of credits, synopses and other information about film and television productions. SIFT has a collection of about 7 million still frames from film and television. The BFI has co-produced a number of television series featuring footage from the BFI National Archive, in partnership with the BBC, including The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon, The Lost World of Friese-Greene and The Lost World of Tibet.

The BFI has also produced contemporary artists' moving image work, most notably through the programme of the BFI Gallery, which was located at BFI Southbank from March 2007 to March 2011. The programme of the gallery resulted in several new commissions by leading artists, including projects which engaged directly with the BFI National Archive, among which are Patrick Keiller's 'The City of the Future', Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard's 'RadioMania: An Abandoned Work' and Deimantas Narkevicious' 'Into the Unknown'. The Gallery also initiated projects by filmmakers such as Michael Snow, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jane and Louise Wilson and John Akomfrah.

The BFI also operates a streaming service, BFI Player. This streaming service offers a variety of niche and art films.

Organisation

History

thumb|[[BFI Southbank|National Film Theatre]]

The institute was founded in 1933. Governors, including the Chair, are appointed by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

The BFI operates with three sources of income. The largest is public money allocated by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. For the year 2021–22, the BFI received £74.31m from the DCMS as Grant-in-Aid funding. The second largest source is commercial activity such as receipts from ticket sales at BFI Southbank or the BFI London IMAX theatre (£5m in 2007), sales of DVDs, etc. Thirdly, grants and sponsorship of around £5m are obtained from various sources, including National Lottery funding grants, private sponsors and through donations (J. Paul Getty, Jr., who died in 2003, left the BFI a legacy of around £1m in his will). The BFI is also the distributor for all Lottery funds for film (in 2011–12 this amounted to c.£25m).

As well as its work on film, the BFI also devotes a large amount of its time to the preservation and study of British television programming and its history. In 2000, it published a high-profile list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, as voted for by a range of industry figures.

The delayed redevelopment of the National Film Theatre finally took place in 2007, creating in the rebranded "BFI Southbank" new education spaces, a contemporary art gallery dedicated to the moving image

In February 2021, the BFI announced that it was teaming up with American diversity and inclusion program #StartWith8Hollywood founded by Cheryl L. Bedford, Manon de Reeper and Thuc Doan Nguyen to make it global.

Leadership

The BFI is currently chaired by Jay Hunt and run by CEO Ben Roberts and deputy CEO Harriet Finney.

BFI Chair

  • George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 5th Duke of Sutherland (1933–1936)
  • Sir Charles Cleland (1936–1937)
  • Sir George Clerk (1938–1939)
  • William Brass, 1st Baron Chattisham (1939–1945)
  • Patrick Gordon Walker (1946–1948)
  • Cecil Harmsworth King (1948–1952)
  • S. C. Roberts (1952–1956)
  • Sylvester Gates (1956–1964)
  • Sir William Coldstream (1964–1971)
  • Sir Denis Forman (1971–1973)
  • Lord Lloyd of Hampstead (1973–1976)
  • John Freeman (1976–1977)
  • Enid Wistrich (Acting) (1977–1978)
  • Sir Basil Engholm (1978–1981)
  • Lord Attenborough (1981–1992)
  • Jeremy Thomas (1992–1997)
  • Sir Alan Parker (1997–1999)
  • Joan Bakewell (1999–2002)
  • Anthony Minghella (2002–2007)
  • Roger Laughton (Acting) (2008)
  • Greg Dyke (2007–2016)
  • Josh Berger (2016–2021)
  • Tim Richards (2021–2024)
  • Jay Hunt (2024–)

BFI directors

  • J. W. Brown (1933–1936)
  • Oliver Bell (1936–1949)
  • Denis Forman (1949–1955)
  • James Quinn (1955–1964)
  • Stanley Reed (1964–1972)
  • Keith Lucas (1972–1978)
  • Anthony Smith (1978–1987)
  • Wilf Stevenson (1987–1997)
  • Jane Clarke (acting, 1997)
  • John Woodward (1997–1999)
  • Jon Teckman (1999–2002)
  • Adrian Wootton (acting, 2002–2003)
  • Amanda Nevill (2003–2020)
  • Ben Roberts (2020–present)

See also

  • BFI 75 Most Wanted – the most sought-after films currently missing from the BFI archive
  • BFI Flipside – the DVD/Blu-ray collection dedicated to telling the alternative history of British film
  • BFI Top 100 British films
  • BFI TV 100 – a list of the best British television programmes
  • Fellows of the British Film Institute
  • Cinema of the United Kingdom
  • Independent cinema in the United Kingdom
  • London in film
  • Television in the United Kingdom
  • Screenonline – a history website run by the BFI
  • List of film institutes
  • Association of European Film Archives and Cinematheques
  • Sutherland Trophy annual BFI Award for "the maker of the most original and imaginative film introduced at the National Film Theatre during the year"

References

Further reading

  • website