GONG HO

Apropos nothing, Scottish Screen has just published a list of its top ten films. Or rather, ten films they’ve put a bit of money into. According to an item in Scotland on Sunday, these movies received £6 million in public subsidy and made ‘at least’ £13 million. This is the trouble with numbers. Who was it that said if you squeeze the figures harder enough, they’ll squeal? Because you’d be forgiven for thinking that £13 million was found kicking and screaming its way into Scottish Screen’s bank account.

This is where I think SS is getting it wrong – but not because they don’t make money from their films. Never mind the Lottery losers that the rags are so fond of airing – even critic's faves such as Morvern Callar or Young Adam didn’t return anything to the public coffers.

When a half million is put into a £3 million film, say, with all the accounting trickery pulled by sales companies and distributors, you can be sure that the public funders are last in the queue for a payoff.

But profit’s not the point here. There’s also kudos to consider. First, because the idea that awards matter is no bad thing, that when your film’s only ever played on six screens, you can always take comfort from winning a gong somewhere. Second, because the films SS backs are low budget, mainly non-genre and generally made by first-timers, they don’t make money anyway. Okay, maybe Magdalene Sisters made a few quid, but I seem to remember reading a piece in the Daily Record where Peter Mullan complained he was still owed his director’s wages. Maybe you can’t up your overdraft by showing off your Golden Lion at the bank, but you can get yourself a better paid gig.

Where distributors get all excited by some US indie effort that screened at Sundance, when it comes to Scottish films made by Scottish filmmakers, they’d sooner crawl over broken glass. In an earlier blog I asked the question – on how many of the 400 or so screens in the UK will Red Road (which features on the list) play when Verve gets round to releasing it? 20? 60? Will the average joe look at the poster and go, oh wow, it won the Prix du Jury at Cannes - it has to be worth parting with six quid? Doesn't matter - what matters is Andrea Arnold will get another shot at making a film. Here's where the interface between the audience and the business goes a bit squiffy - because punters don't fund films, they only get what they're given. It's the biz that will decide whether AA has a career. Or not.

Scottish Screen doesn’t need to play the profit and loss game. What matters is that films get made and win prizes. Surely it’s enough to keep people employed, give some real experience to trainees, find some new talent and keep the country on the filmmaking map. If the odd picture breaks out and makes some money, then great. In a world that turns on the latest press puff, SS could do a lot worse. Let's face it, you can’t roll out the red carpet for another series of Re-edit, Re-edit, Re-edit.