Sign The Petition to Save the Library

These guys have done wonderful work 953 signatures at the time of posting. Push it to all facebook contacts and email to all friends. Let's push this to 2000. Hear it straight from the horses mouth (and check out Pam Cooks' wonderful blog)...

Late in 2010, the British Film Institute’s (BFI) senior management proposed splitting the BFI’s collection of printed works (books, journals and the like) and establishing “digital delivery” to users at the BFI site on the London Southbank with much of the collection physically to be held at the BFI’s Berkhamsted site – about 30 miles north of London and with more than a mile walk (no public transport) between the BFI site and the nearest railway station.

Despite the BFI management claiming that the Library is “core” to the BFI’s collections and that “Developing access to collections continues to be a key goal” the proposed move will worsen access – particularly for those living outside London. Library users value both the integration of the collection and its location. In 2002, the BFI commissioned a consultants’ report which found users valued “ease of access” more than anything else; more than 70% of users said a central London location was very important – and a further 21% said it was quite important. Three quarters of respondents said they would be unlikely to travel to Berkhamsted to use the collections if they were moved there.

An Expense Too Far?

Have you seen the new entrance to the BFI?

It's pretty, colourful and shiny :-D

Unfortunately because the space between the BFI and the National Theatre is quite narrow you have to stand on belvedere road if you wish to identify the colourful blobs of light drifting accross the screen as the breakfast at tiffanys trailor.

...oh yeah and it cost £40,000.

Yikes!

The company that built it

This Payroll looks a little TOP heavy!

Fighters and Exciters,

Consider this one of the fights closest to our hearts. 

When Lehmann Brothers collapsed it became clear to every honest economist that free market fundametalism, Adam Smith's invisible hand, Neoliberalism, was a bankrupt ideology. The last time free markets had reigned supreme coincided with Britannia ruling the waves and ended with the first world war. This may all seem a tad removed from the struggles of the BFI but don't be so optimistic. From Thatcher's reforms of the 80s Neoliberalism had a foot hold, from the fall of the berlin wall it had a global ambition... We'll slow this down before we get too carried away but to finish, from the end of the cold war onwards Neoliberalism has been the dominant socio-economic ideology in the western world and socio-economic ideologies (unlike wages) do trickle down.

Which brings us to the BFI. 

When market forces dictate every decision in an economy executives get more money. They get more money and they keep their mouths shut. In the public sector they do what the government tells them (they meet targets) and they keep their mouths shut. You might think the various directors of the arts sector might be willing to fight on all fronts for the good of the sector but stop -- don't bite the hand that feeds! 

And boy, don't that hand feed well...

Solidarity

We have a new page at BFI Uncut called Solidarity.

While we believe our struggle at the BFI is of great importance we also believe it is of the greatest importance to be deeply engaged with the amount of destruction this government is creating in the rest of the country. We have found so much of the resistance to this nationwide destruction to be truly inspiring and it is in the honour of their efforts that we have built this page.

We will use this page to promote events we believe in, to suggest people we believe you should be following (on twitter ;-)) bloggers you should be reading and promote causes you should be joining. This page is your resource for digesting the nationwide movement that is unfolding before our eyes.

If you feel there are tricks we have missed please email us at bfiuncut@gmail.com

If you would like to invite us to an event we have missed this is our Facebook Profile

We would encourage everyone to go to some of these events and speak to people from different walks of life that are facing the same bullshit as you. Switch off the BBC Newzak throw away your murdoch approved reprinted press releases and be the master of your own opinion.

BFI Festivals Ringfenced? [Guest Post]

• You can imagine how delighted we were at BFI Uncut when we discovered an angry rant in our inbox regarding the much ignored LLGFF controversy from 'Somebody Anybody', email: 'yougottafight@hotmail.com' - Awesome! Someone having fun with the anonymity the internet provides. We were delighted that they were happy to provide our first guest post! We think this a wonderful model. If anyone feels particularly irate at some of the cuts we will be delighted to offer you our guest post window. So remember, as long as you're acting within the law the wiki is also totally anonymous. Feel free to let it all out :-P   

The UKFC funding that LFF received 3 years ago, comes to an end next year and the BFI will be faced with funding the now bigger and more expensive Festival itself. I'm assuming as well, that if the BFI takes over the lottery funding, that will make the LFF ineligible to apply for further lottery funding. So, where will the money come from to fund the festival. The BFI doesn't have the money to pay it's own staff, let alone fund a multi million pound festival. Obviously, it's a key activity, but it's not our only activity.

Despite the fact that the core Festival team are now working on half a festival less, none of them have been listed as at risk.