Latest in UK Film Council

Joe Utichi contributes to Deadline’s UK coverage In a keynote at the Film Production Finance Market in London this morning, BFI Film Fund director Ben Roberts talked about plans for better cooperation with international partners, providing extra coin for minority co-productions and establishing development/production…

The head of the BFI Film Fund has resigned to return to being an independent producer. Tanya Seghatchian — who famously discovered Harry Potter for Warner Bros — has been in what many consider the plum job in the British film industry for the past four years, doling out money to indie producers. I'm told she felt…

UK press over here are gushing that The King's Speech quadruple Oscar major wins – Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay — will be a boost for the British film industry. But I would say it's all downhill from here. Consider the evidence. Beginning next April, there will be no UK Film Council…

The film agency tells me there's no conflict of interest over Woodward joining venture capitalist Arts Alliance, despite it awarding an £11.5 million contract to the company in 2005. UK Film Council selected an offshoot of Arts Alliance, the company which Woodward joins in November, to install a UK nationwide digital…

John Woodward will become managing director of the European venture capital company that invests in digital film next month. Woodward has said in public that if he was starting over he would get involved in digital film rights aggregation. Arts Alliance's investments include LoveFilm — the UK version of Netflix — and…

EXCLUSIVE: Ed Vaizey, the British culture minister, hosted a meeting at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport this morning to thrash out who should administer UK’s lottery film funding. He tells me that the government has drawn up a shortlist of 3 to 4 organisations which could run it after the UK Film Council…

John Woodward says he will leave British film agency in early November now that the Conservative government has ordered the UK Film Council shuttered. Woodward wants to be un-conflicted while negotiations are ongoing with the new government as to what will replace the UKFC. The first round-table meeting between…

UPDATE: The UK government agency supporting the film industry in East Anglia has gone out of business because of financial problems. Finance manager Melvin Welton has been arrested on suspicion of theft. Laurie Hayward, CEO, told local newspaper Norwich Evening News: "The directors of Screen East have concluded that…

This is exclusive to Deadline and updates Director Matthew Vaughn Pitches Film Fund That’s “Win/Win For Britain And Hollywood”: PROPOSAL…

This morning's Times of London reports that the film agency has hired political lobbyists Portland, the PR firm founded by a former adviser to Tony Blair. Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has written to John Woodward, CEO of the Film Council, demanding he explain why has taken on Portland, whose other clients include…

James Lee, former chairman of Scottish film agency Scottish Screen, has written to UK culture secretary Jeremy Hunt proposing all £15 million of lottery funding be injected into a single distribution label. BBC Films and Film4 would be obliged to release all their films through this "British National Distribution…

Ed Vaizey, the UK arts minister, has written a stern letter to UKFC head John Woodward demanding to know whether the agency has been spending public money on campaigning for a reprieve. Vaizey wants to know whether the UKFC has been "briefing" the film industry – including Hollywood – to protest against its closure. Cl…