BFI: British Film Institute
Related: British cinema - film society - UK
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In 1959, the BFI combined the opening of a new, purpose-built National Film Theatre with the launching of the London Film Festival, designed as a non-competitive showcase of films presented at other festivals. The LFF soon began adding its own choices and has steadily grown in scope and size to the present day. The NFT continued to combine retrospectives with seasons of new work. --http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/cinemas/sect5.html [Oct 2004]The institute was founded in 1933. Despite its foundation resulting from a recommendation in a report on Film and National Life, at that time the institute was a private company, though it has received public money throughout its history - from the Privy Council and Treasury until 1965 and the various culture departments since then. The institute was restructured following the Radcliffe Report of 1948 which recommended that the institute should concentrate on developing the appreciate on the films art, rather than creating film itself. Thus control of educational film production passed to the National Committee for Visual Aids in Education and the British Film Academy assumed control for promoting production.
The institute finally received a Royal Charter in 1983. It was updated in 2000, when the Film Council was created to govern its activities. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Film_Institute [Oct 2004]
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