Tom Hiddleston: British film is respected across the world, we need the BFI to build a proper home for it

BFI Ambassador Tom Hiddleston passionately explains why a new home for British film would be such a welcome addition to the South Bank
Looking to the future of film: Tom Hiddleston
Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images
Tom Hiddleston26 May 2016

All the major art forms in Britain quite correctly have national homes – the National Gallery, the Tate, the Royal Opera House, the National Theatre. All except one – film.

We call it by many names: cinema, television, and the moving image. Film is the most profoundly influential, inspirational, and accessible art form of our time. Film has the power to change the way we think, to entertain, to inspire, to delight, and to move. It can change the way we feel about the world.

As a society, we need films in order to make sense of who we are: who we are to ourselves, and who we are to each other. When the lights go down, the music starts, and we disappear into another world. We enter the cinema as strangers, but we leave as a group, with a shared understanding of something new. We laugh, we cry, we cheer.

British film – the tradition which has created and produced so much extraordinary talent both in front of and behind the camera, all of whom have gone on to make films which will endure long after most of us are gone – needs a national home, and the BFI is the organisation to build it.

The development is a chance to create a new landmark, a cultural flagship, an architectural masterpiece which will celebrate film in all its glory. It will help to democratise and diversify the pool of talent coming into the industry. My great hope is that it will help support a diverse range of film-makers, both established and emerging – from all backgrounds – who will each have their own stories to contribute, who can each develop their unique and singular voice to articulate their perspective. In order to maintain a truthful reflection of the breadth and diversity of British life, we need voices from every quarter.

We have long produced the world’s most exciting directors and actors working in the English language. British film has produced the greats: from directors like David Lean, Alfred Hitchcock, and Stanley Kubrick to Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, and Andrea Arnold; and actors from Sir Lawrence Olivier, Peter O’Toole and Albert Finney to Dame Judi Dench, Daniel Craig, Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton. Our studios and facilities at Pinewood, Shepperton, and Leavesden are world class, and the envy of the Hollywood. Our crews are celebrated and respected.

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The British film industry is respected and admired all over the world. In Hollywood – where comic-book superheroes and the Jedis of the Star Wars universe are played by British actors; in Europe – where Ken Loach has just won the Palme d’Or at Cannes; in China – where the British Prime Minister during a visit to the country is asked when the Chinese public can expect the next episode of Sherlock – the reach of British film is far and wide. It is deeply loved and universally admired. Long may it continue.

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