A few days ago, the news that Scotland ushered in the first Pakistani leader swept the front pages of major newspapers in the UK. At the same time, the British Film Institute (BFI), which occupies a pivotal position in the territory of the British film industry, has been involved in a scandal of racial discrimination, which has also been seen in the literary and artistic pages of the media.
Faisal Qureshi
The party who was discriminated against was a telefilm producer named Faisal Qureshi. Born in 1975, he is also of Pakistani origin. Since entering the industry in the 1990s, he has made many short films. " and other films.
Last year, Quresi filed a complaint with the British Film Association about his discrimination, but there was no positive response. Melanie Hoyes, the director of diversity issues within the association, said in During the video connection with him in July last year, he admitted that the British Film Association does have a "systematic racial discrimination problem", which has caused serious psychological trauma to many non-white filmmakers. The association receives a large number of related complaints every year, but handles them poorly. She even compared the BFI to the Titanic, which "may have hit an iceberg".
Faisal Qureshi, who is an ethnic minority, felt he was not being treated fairly by the BFI and filed a complaint against a director of the BFI last year. According to Quresi, who met with him in March 2019 and refused to give him a stipend for the film project, he suggested that it was because Quresi was "too blunt" when speaking about race on social media. . But in Quresi's view, he is still serving as the chairman of the Black Members Committee of the British Film, Television, Broadcasting and Stage Theater Union, and it is his duty to speak out boldly.
Perhaps in order to calm things down, Quresi did not have the opportunity to have a video chat with Melanie Hoyes until July last year. Expressed apology, but she still couldn't come up with a written apology letter. "It felt like I went to a restaurant and complained that their food wasn't good enough and they said sorry; but the truth is, I was complaining about a huge thing that affected my career Ah." Quresi said in an interview with the media recently.
Founded in 1933, the British Film Institute is celebrating its 90th birthday this year. In addition to being responsible for operating the famous "Sight and Sound" film magazine and managing and maintaining the British film archives, the British Film Institute also shoulders the important task of providing various subsidies and allowances for British film and television works. Every year, the association receives government funding from the British Ministry of Culture, Media and Sports, plus its own funds and donations from institutions such as the British National Lottery Fund, and then they are responsible for screening and reviewing applicants and distributing the total Grants of around £45 million.
Although the cost of film production is soaring today, the amount of subsidy from a single agency is somewhat insignificant, but for those low-cost and micro-budget independent productions, it is really an important start-up capital. Because of this, hundreds of film and television projects are bidding for grants from the British Film Institute every year, and disputes will arise from time to time about who will be awarded and not awarded. And many filmmakers from ethnic minorities and disadvantaged groups feel that racism is behind the failure of their projects.
According to media reports, in the past three years, the number of such complaints received by the British Film Association hit a record high, and exceeded complaints involving gender discrimination and age discrimination. For this reason, they also hired an independent consulting company in 2022. On the one hand, they turned their blades inward to investigate whether there is any problem with their own complaint handling process. On the other hand, the code of conduct for relevant staff is also being trained, hoping to reduce the so-called subconscious racial bias as much as possible.
Regarding the case of Faisal Qureshi, the association has also stated that it will definitely come up with the results of the investigation as soon as possible, and they assured it that his complaint will never affect his future grant application. However, Quresi still told the media that he still has some concerns.
In recent years, well-known films that have received grants from the British Film Institute include "The Favourite", "Blue Jenny", "The Souvenir" and "I Am Blake". According to the association, about 65% of the film and television projects that received grants in the past year came from white creators, and the remaining 35% came from producers, directors or screenwriters of other races, exceeding their original goal of 30%. .