THEY CANNAE TAKE OUR FREEDOM

Always read the small print, I say.

But you'd need a microscope to find - lurking at the bottom of Scottish Screen's non website - a tiny link called publications. A swift click takes you to a .pdf file relating to (yawn, I know) their take on the Freedom of Information Act and a declaration of how Scottish Screen prides itself on transparency. Which is all very well, but their information's duff. So much so, I'm thinking of launching a campaignette to get them to correct their wrongs.

For instance, no way can SS claim that their list of grants awarded, three year corporate plan, annual operational plan and budget, organisational structure blah blah are available online. Believe me, I've hunted and they're not. Nor can I find any information on who's on the Board or their many committees. They claim a staff of 45, but who are they? There's no direct contacts listed - which, as the publicly funded 'lead representative of the screen industries' for an entire country is a total scandal. If they really want to claim that status among their constituents - by which I mean all the TV companies, production outfits, cinemas, educational bodies and lone filmmakers like me - producers, directors and writers, then they need to earn it.

If SS really wants us to know what they're up to, they could start by putting up a decent site with all the information listed, rather than make us beg for it. Even better, they could set up a forum - something they've never done in the past - to let them know who we are and what we think. But they won't. And I can think of plenty of reasons why they won't. I've heard too many stories from disgruntled filmmakers about how their emails and calls go unreturned, scripts don't get read - or if they do, it's by the pishiest of the staff's pals, generally out-of-work actors with a short script to their name who attended some seminar or other. Films that get mangled by hydra-like interference, usually because some BBC numpty's involved. There's even films that don't get watched, because somebody decided at the rough cut stage they didn't like it, forgetting the fact it's not their job to like it. It's their job to watch it and promote it - something else Scottish Screen fails at miserably.

Maybe I'm missing the point here. The point is Scottish Screen, desperate to carve a slice of the Creative Scotland action, is too busy complying all over the place to the powers that be to have the energy to do what they were set up to do. Too busy playing politics to stick to their declared aims. For instance, if you read their statement on 'Talent and Creativity' - it says - 'To ensure that Scotland's creative talent is nurtured and supported at appropriate levels in appropriate ways'. Can anybody tell me what this means? Because going on the evidence and from where I stand it means bugger off, bunch of losers.

Getting back to my theme of freedom though, maybe it's better not to look to anybody for handouts - or bad information. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees as a filmmaker.

And poor wee 'Badgered' lost out at the Oscars. Boy, do I hate Mondays. But Crash? And I'm not against the poof cowboys flick, but Capote should've won. At moments like this I need chocolate.