UK producers need more financial assistance to be able to support up-and-coming local talent efficiently, according to a lively debate in the UK Pavilion at Cannes.
“We need to talk about how to support producers because the producers are the ones galvanising and making work for the actors and for everybody else,” said Anna Griffin, of Griffin Pictures, who produced 2016’s Paa Joe & The Lion and 2018’s Calibre and is a former Screen Star of Tomorrow.
“There’s such an elite system… There’s lots of producers out there who want so much to support their local talent, and they just can’t,” she continued. “We need to look from the top down a little bit as well.”
Griffin was speaking on a panel alongside fellow producers Emily Morgan of Quiddity Films (in Cannes with Critics’ Week title The Settlers) and a former Star of Tomorrow and Tolu Stedford, producer and co-CEO of Story Compound, as well Mia Bays, director of the BFI Film Fund, and talent agent Roger Charteris. Moderated by Screen’s Fionnuala Halligan, the event marked 20 years of Screen’s Stars of Tomorrow and debated how to attract UK filmmakers and talent to projects with international potential.
Griffin also noted how “lucky” she was to have received the British Film Institute’s (BFI) Vision Award which provides financial support for emerging producers and is “on pause” according to Bays. “I would not have survived at all [without it],” said Griffin.
Beyond diversity
Representation was also a hot topic on the panel with Stedford stressing how support for voices from marginalised backgrounds needs to move beyond “box ticking”.
“We can prove the point that these stories make money, and we can enrich the industry as a whole,” Stedford said. “So nobody’s asking for anybody to come in just for the sake of ticking a box. It’s about the great content coming in.”
Stedford pointed towards the recent success of Black-led romantic comedy Rye Lane which grossed £1.2m at the UK-Ireland box office as an example of “seeing great new talent in stories that are accessible” as well as financially beneficial.
“We keep saying that they’re diverse but I just don’t want to keep putting it that in the box,” she continued. “They’re great movies and you’re going to go on a ride and enjoy yourself. And that’s the celebration of investing more.”
She concluded by expressing her hope that “in five years we can just stop talking about diversity and inclusion and just get on with it.”
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