Glasgow-based producer Gillian Berrie is urging Scotland's Holyrood Parliament to invest in studios and other facilities to help the country match the output of foreign rivals. Berrie, of Sigma Films the company behind Hallam Foe which opens the Edinburgh International Film Festival this week, said given the right level of investment and strategy, Scotland could develop a film industry…

  Figures published by the UK Film Council reveal that British film is a thriving industry. Film provided the British economy with £4.3 billion during 2006, representing a 39% increase from two years ago, the last year for which figures were collated. Film Council CEO John Woodward warned that these figures could dwindle unless the government continued its support in terms…

  The Film Business Academy is the world's first international centre dedicated to the business of film.  Part of Cass Business School, the academy is based just fifteen minutes from Soho, the heart of the British film industry. The Film Business Academy aims to bring the creative energy of the international film industry together with global business expertise, with idea of cre…

"The fact that the UKFC is supporting off-line events, specifically film festivals, is good news for  cinema lovers on this dull, damp island." Eliot Grove, Raindance The UK Film Council have unveiled new additional funding plans from now until 2010, including a £1.5m annual festivals fund, and further money for archive, digitisations, online promotion and partnerships…

Paul Gilbert recently posted to Shooting People about a new petition on the website of YouTube vlogger 'No 10 Downing Street'... "Does everyone know about this? There is a petition on the Number 10 Downing Street website already up and running which aims to: ‘Stop the Chancellor using Lottery money to plug the funding gap in the 2012 Olympics. If this goes ahead at lea…

  British film-makers are unable to decide whether to raise a toast to Gordon Brown or bay for his blood. The Chancellor has closed a tax loophole, potentially costing the industry millions of pounds, while introducing a new tax credit which will give an as yet unknown amount back to film-makers. Producers, investors and accountants have been hit by a spate of changes to the tax sy…

  Some producers making films not intended for the cinema, such as TV movies and straight-to-DVD productions may get a boost from Chancellor Gordon Brown's budget, according to Scott Sinclair of IFAonline. He points out on the IAFonline website, that under current rules set out in the Finance Act (FA) 2006, firms making films for cinema and TV are affected by their own tax agen…

  New Ruling Caps Amount Raised Under EIS U.K. film producers were hit with a second tax clampdown in as many weeks on budget day as the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown delivered his annual budget speech. While Brown told a packed House of Commons that he wants to put the creative industries at the heart of fiscal policymaking, the devil was in the details for the movie in…

  Sale and Leaseback Deals Spared Noose More than 90 Movies Could be Saved The British film industry breathed a collective huge sigh of relief this week when, on Wednesday, the U.K. government excluded film sale-and-leaseback deals from its latest tax clampdown, announced last Friday. Film industry leaders have been lobbying furiously for this U-turn since Friday, when t…