Why Anime owes the UK Film Council
Moving onto a different topic this week, there’s a cinematic theme on my mind. With London Expo having been and gone in the last weekend, there’s a push coming for at least two anime-centric theatrical works. The first is a big push from Manga Entertainment (in cooperation with Pathé) at the event to be for Blood The Last Vampire and then there’s the work-up for the upcoming release of Sword of the Stranger in the UK from us at Beez too.
However a month or two back while I was digging around for theatrical plans I came across some interesting figures. The UK Film Council holds a special fund for creating film prints (35mm or digital) and advertising of these films in cinemas for anyone who is too small as a distributor or is releasing an arthouse film that without funding would never reach more than 1 press screening. Now when you realize that this is a very transparent system, at least with regards to displaying what awards they have given out, one question stood out: Has Asian cinema benefited at all from this fund?
The simple answer is yes. Below are several tables I put together in a spreadsheet while I was doing my own research into the numbers out there for the amounts gone into live action and animation over the past few years:
Anime/Western animation:
| Title | Distributor | Fund | Total allocated |
| Waltz With Bashir | Artificial Eye Film Company Ltd | National Lottery | 250,000.00 |
| Persepolis | Optimum Releasing | National Lottery | 180,000.00 |
| Howl's Moving Castle | Optimum Releasing | National Lottery | 150,000.00 |
| Belleville Rendez-vous | Metro Tartan | National Lottery | 80,000.00 |
| Spirited Away | Optimum Releasing | National Lottery | 40,000.00 |
Japanese/Chinese live action:
| Film | Distributor | Fund | Total Allocated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Curse of the Golden Flower | Universal Pictures International UK & Eire Ltd | National Lottery | £300,000 |
| Lust Caution | Universal Pictures International UK & Eire Ltd | National Lottery | £200,000 |
| Mongol | The Works UK Distribution Ltd | National Lottery | £150,000 |
| House of Flying Daggers | Pathe Distribution Ltd | National Lottery | £100,000 |
| 2046 | Tartan Film Distribution Ltd | National Lottery | £80,923 |
| Zatoichi | Artificial Eye Film Co Ltd | National Lottery | £70,000 |
| I'm A Cyborg | Tartan Film Distribution Ltd | National Lottery | £20,000 |
Both of these show no real small numbers for a campaign theatrical or otherwise for either genres in the UK. In reality as well most advertising from these put into theatrical also greatly helps the sales of the DVDs as well however long afterwards they come out - even if it’s just down to all the adverts being basically ready to go barring changing “Out in cinemas” to “Out in shops”.
Looking at the amounts funneled into the two Anime titles fans would recognize there and cite as shining examples of anime taking the world by storm at the time, ask yourself this: Without a contribution from the UK Film Council would they truly have been as much of a success in this country?
The answer is very likely a no - if they had not been covered then at minimum the budgets would be half the amount they were. Sure the DVD sales would probably have still been good but Spirited Away would probably have remained a title recognized as being an Oscar winner that they probably should show to their kids. Sure the back catalog of Ghibli would be out there for people to buy from Optimum still no doubt - but whether it would get front row placing and sales figures when it comes to retail is a completely different affair.
Of course I am sure now people have noticed, there will be a host of companies lining up at the trough to try and get a piece of that feed though for any film with a vague eastern tinge that seems arthouse. That being said if you look at in from the perspective of National Lottery funding being used to promote films that would not otherwise stand a great chance in the UK - then it is clearly doing its job.
As far as spending the income from sanctioned gambling goes, you could do a lot worse than promoting the finest elements of Eastern cinema including anime. Though as a colleague at another company and I were discussing, one has to wonder how a film like Zaitochi managed to wrangle its way in there though (as personally it wasn’t that great a film)…
One would suspect future candidates for this fund would include from the anime world: Sword of the Stranger, Sky Crawlers and the upcoming Ponyo. The question is - without this money do you think these shows would do half as well at reaching the audiences they do?
If the answer to that is no - then I think a big thank you to the UK Film Council is in order for making the previous and (hopefully) popular forthcoming releases from companies in the UK possible!
Quite an interesting read. I wonder if this fund could not be used towards BBFC charges. This could mean more titles becoming feasible for an UK release.
Also, I don’t get your comment about Zatoichi. Movies like Curse of the Golden Flower, Lust Caution & House of Flying Daggers would have done well despite the help of the fund.
Regarding the BBFC charges, it’s conceivable - as you need a BBFC on the cinema reel at minimum for a wide distribution. Although certain independent cinemas will accept films with no rating, it can be very difficult to get them placed.
I’ve clarified in the main post my point regarding that was it just wasn’t that good a film in the opinion of a few people I was discussing the whole thing with. That being said - there is a question over if those films would have been as successful otherwise. For example the PA fund is actually for publicity full stop, it allows for the hiring of real publicity agents to push a film to its maximum potential. So even if a big-name studio like Universal has the rights to a film - if they can’t guarantee breaking even with the film then they will just throw it out as a standard DVD release and it would only reach fans of Eastern cinema to begin with.
So arguably these films actually did benefit just the same as anime did from them. Cinema releases nowadays for niche cinema that do not include exploding starships, stomping robots, brides battling for the one wedding cake left in a shop (or a mix of all three) etc made in Hollywood are very difficult now.
Hope this clarifies the comment - in general too I figured these numbers would be useful for fans too as it gives you an idea how much was added to whatever budgets the films had and helped give titles like Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle such a successful time in the UK. So glad you liked it :).
Oh, come on! Zatoichi has Beat Takeshi - yes, the same Takeshi from Takeshi’s castle =)
It’s really suspicious of me to comment on Zatoichi, because I was into the original TV series which actually aired back home. The series was famous for popularizing the blind swordsman concept, which is taken for granted now.
Every element of the original series was there, the sad back story of a few character, revenge, yakuzas ruling over simple people. The only changes was the revelation about Zatoichi in the end of the movie and the tap dancing + taiko in the credits, which was simply amazing.
I also like Takeshi’s yakuza movies, with a mention to Brother.
But I digress.
The idea of this funding is great and I hope it’s used to bring more good movies to the UK. Is the list of movies fully accessible to the public?
That’s exactly why I qualified that the mention for it was personal taste really over anything else, if you were into the original show then I can see it would have a certain appeal.
On topic - yes it is and can be found here: http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/awards
It only goes back a certain way and I have combed it for what was entered up until 2008 (2009 ones will pop up later no doubt) for everyone so they don’t have to trawl for the relevant ones to fans/industry in the animation + relevant live action. Obviously anyone wondering if GitS or Akira got this has to keep in mind at the time they launched the lottery was in its infancy in the UK. This meant that by 2000 when funding was accrued and the UK Film Council was founded - it was too late for those films to receive support.