LFS announces Creative Skillset/BFI lottery funding for capital campaign,
honours Christine Langan, Phil Davis, Margaret Glover, and Hayden Griffin
and celebrates a year of graduate achievement: 179 festivals and 43 prizes.
Creative Skillset is looking to invest £1.82m in LFS and has awarded the school up to £468,596 towards the development of its plans to transfer the school and its operations to the new site. A stage two application for construction works will be made in 2014. The funding is part of Creative Skillset's four-year film skills strategy which supports the BFI's strategic priorities.
In a deal with the City of London Corporation, in space currently ccupied by Barbican Exhibition Hall 1, the new location in Golden Lane will provide state of the art filmmaking facilities, extended accommodation, public outreach and space for industry screenings and events.
MIke Leigh, LFS Chairman and 1964 graduate, said, “We’re very grateful to Creative Skillset and the BFI, who have supported the school’s work over the last decade. They are now recognizing the urgent need for LFS to have up-to-date facilities and space, for more UK students, for freelancers using our workshops, and to realise an international film hub at the Barbican. It’s the beginning of a new journey – please come and join us!”
Also at the Annual Show Mike Leigh will present Honorary Associateships to Christine Langan, Head of BBC Films, actor Phil Davis, former LFS Senior Lecturer Margaret Glover and a posthumous award to Production Designer Hayden Griffin.
Associateships will then be awarded to 96 graduating students from the MA Filmmaking, MA Screenwriting and Fast Forward Producing programmes. 58 films will be screened in full or as extracts during the day.
“It’s been a wonderful year of work and talent. The school’s moving from strength to strength and over the next two years our recent planning work and new partnerships will take us forward again. Congratulations to the class of 2013! ”, said LFS Director Ben Gibson.
In the past year, LFS films had 232 festival entries across 179 events, winning 43 prizes, nominations or special mentions. The tally breaks LFS records for global visibility and graduate success. The list covers Toronto, Venice, Tribeca, San Sebastian, Clermont Ferrand, The London Film Festival, San Francisco, the BAFTAs and the Student Academy Awards.
LFS Associates have moved on to the Low Budget Film Forum, Sundance Lab, the Cannes Residence Programme, AdaptLab, the Mauritz Binger Institute and received commissions from Microwave and iFeatures. Jules Bishop’s first feature BORROWED TIME opened to excellent reviews and got industry attention for its innovative distribution strategies. Jamie Chambers’ BLACKBIRD was Best of the Fest at Edinburgh. Both films showcased the talents, not only of new directors, but also producers and cinematographers drawn from the MA Filmmaking programme. Flora Lau’s first feature BENDS was selected for Cannes Un Certain Regard.
In September 2014 the debut of a new degree with the University of Exeter, the MA International Film Business, will build on the relationship formed to offer PhD Film Practice degrees together – and, like Making Waves and Fast Forward Producing, is an expression of the school’s determination to broaden its engagement with creativity across the important jobs in film and television and beyond the production phase.
The Annual Show was presented in association with Pinewood, with additional support from Panalux, Fava, DeJonghe and Essex Insurance Brokers.
More information – Kate Hughes k.hughes@lfs.org.uk Tel 07788 432 852
www.lfs.org.uk
Notes to editors
Christine Langan - Head of BBC Films. Langan is the recipient of a BAFTA Award and Academy and Golden Globe nominations for THE QUEEN, a BAFTA TV Award for THE DEAL and BAFTA nominations for COLD FEET and DIRTY FILTHY LOVE. Her numerous credits as Executive Producer include Andrea Arnold’s Cannes prize-winner FISH TANK, Lone Scherfig’s AN EDUCATION, Jane Campion’s BRIGHT STAR, Academy Award nominated MY WEEK WITH MARILYN, Lynne Ramsay’s WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, Stephen Frears’ PHILOMENA and John Lee Hancock’s SAVING MR BANKS.
Phil Davis– Davis’ film and TV credits include QUADROPHENIA, BLEAK HOUSE, NORTH SQUARE, HIGH HOPES, ANOTHER YEAR and VERA DRAKE, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA. As well as Davis’ long association with Mike Leigh, he has more recent connections with the school, having starred in BORROWED TIME, which was ‘Best of the Fest’ at Edinburgh and was released in cinemas in 2013.
Hayden Griffin- In his career as an international theatre, opera and film designer, Hayden designed an incredible range of award-winning work, including 30 world premieres for The National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Metropolitan Opera and many others. Film credits included Patrice Chereau's INTIMACY and David Hare's WETHERBY. He died on 24 March 2013.
Margaret Glover- LFS Senior Lecturer from 2005 - 2013, Margaret oversaw production of all the graduation films screening at our 2013 Annual Show. While at LFS, Margaret devised and delivered workshops for the LFS-Gulbenkian collaboration, the EU MEDIA-funded Low Budget Film Forum and Creative Skillset-funded Hothouse. Other LFS-related credits include executive producer on BLACKBIRD, the feature debut of MA Filmmaking graduates Jamie Chambers (director), James Barrett (producer), John Craine (cinematographer) and Robyn Pete (co-writer) and editor on graduate Ali Jaberansari’s first feature FALLING LEAVES.
Other LFS Honorary Associates include directors William Friedkin, Stephen Frears, Ken Loach, Lynne Ramsay, Richard Lester, Pawel Pawlikowski, Mike Figgis, Abbas Kiarostami, Jack Gold and Amma Asante, producers Rebecca O’Brien, Christopher Hird, Jeremy Thomas and Tessa Ross, actors Gillian Anderson, Jim Broadbent, Samantha Morton and Rita Tushingham, film critic Philip French, as well as retired LFS faculty Chrissy Bright, Cedric James, Rodney Newton, Roy Pointer and Colin Tucker.
The London Film School
Founded in 1956, LFS is one of the world's longest established graduate filmmaking schools. It is constituted as an international conservatoire with 70% of its MA Filmmaking students coming from outside the UK. The School produces around 170 films a year, including work for the five teaching exercises on the MA Filmmaking. The School also offers an MA degree in Screenwriting, an MA degree in International Film Business and a PhD programme with the University of Exeter, and around 50 Continuous Professional Development courses each year as ‘LFS Workshops’. The school is the most active in Europe with post-graduation teaching partnerships, including The Low Budget Film Forum, Making Waves and Serial Eyes.
LFS graduates are established in film and television production in more than eighty countries. Associates include world-renowned filmmakers Mike Leigh, Michael Mann, Tak Fujimoto, Roger Pratt, Ueli Steiger, Iain Smith, Duncan Jones, Horace Ove, Ho Yim, Danny Huston, Franc Roddam, Brad Anderson, Ann Hui, Marius Holst, Oliver Hermanus and Bill Douglas, as well as the film historian David Thomson and the playwright Arnold Wesker.
LFS is one of three Creative Skillset Film Academies, postgraduate institutions approved by the UK film industry as centres of excellence.