Trying to Break Through a Fog

It’s hard to remember when British film was last so triumphantly ascendant, with production at its highest level within living memory and home-grown films like “The Full Monty,” “Bean,” “Wilde,” “Shooting Fish” and “A Life Less Ordinary” doing business in the nation’s theaters ranging from spectacular to merely healthy.

Given these facts, you might expect this year’s 41st London Film Festival, which starts today, to be joyous and celebratory. It isn’t.

Instead the event is undermined by internal squabbles, public disagreements about its function and charges that it is a perennial underachiever among international film festivals.

A world capital like London, the argument goes, should have a festival with a higher profile and greater clout in the film industry. London’s is a long, wide-ranging, noncompetitive festival, and it finds itself overshadowed by prize-giving festivals in smaller towns: Cannes, Berlin and Venice, to name only its European counterparts.

So serious was the situation earlier this year that for a while, the 41st festival was threatened by its former director’s plans for a rival competitive festival, also starting this month. The threat was averted, but the infighting did little to help the perception of the festival’s health.

“The difference between us and other festivals is our focus on audiences,” said Adrian Wootton, director of the festival. “We’d love to get world premieres, but they’re not something we spend our time chasing. Our focus has been to have U.K. premieres and give London audiences a first opportunity to see a film in Britain.”

Wootton, 35, is concerned that too many foreign-language films are not distributed in Britain. His programming team recently acquired “The Taste of Cherries,” Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami’s joint Palme d’Or winner at Cannes this year, which has only just found a British distributor, but there are still no plans to show commercially the Japanese film with which it shared the award, Shohei Imamura’s “The Eel,” which will also be at the festival.

“We know there’s an appetite for [non-English-language] films,” Wootton said. “But 70% of them are never released in Britain. That’s why this festival is important. We’re keeping a flame alive.”

It is certainly true that of about 180 feature films showing in the festival this month, foreign-language material is strongly favored. The schedule contains strands from France, Spain, Africa, India and Pakistan and films from 40 more countries.

But many of the American movies featured have a familiar look: “Cop Land,” “She’s So Lovely,” “The Myth of Fingerprints,” “The Edge.” And British film industry sources told The Times that they were disappointed that the festival could not attract major talent to London to support their films.

Sigourney Weaver will participate in an onstage interview in support of “The Ice Storm,” as will Wesley Snipes for Mike Figgis’ “One Night Stand,” which closes the festival. Sylvester Stallone is also flying in for the gala screening of “Cop Land.” Few other big international names will visit.

Worse criticism surrounds the British films in the festival, starting with the movie that opens the festival tonight, “Keep the Aspidistra Flying,” starring Helena Bonham Carter and Richard E. Grant and directed by Englishman Robert Bierman. It has already been seen at the Toronto Film Festival, as has the closing night film, “One Night Stand.”

And though the festival is offering 16 British-made films in its “New British Cinema” strand, critics have pointed out that many of them were seen at the Venice Film Festival two months ago.

The festival is run by the British Film Institute from its office above the National Film Theatre on the South Bank arts complex overlooking the river Thames. Yet it is a split-site festival: Although many of its films are shown at the National Film Theatre, others are screened across the river at theaters in the West End, heartland of Britain’s commercial cinema.

The film institute hopes to move into the West End in 1999, when a new five-screen National Film Theatre would become festival headquarters. “Meanwhile,” Wootton said, “we’re in a transitional period.”

A switch to a West End site would certainly help the festival. But first it must deal with the ambitions of Sheila Whitaker, festival director for 10 years before she was removed from the post by the film institute a year ago.

In the spring, Whitaker announced a rival festival, Film London, which would have awarded prizes in competition. It was to have had a shorter schedule than the sprawling 18-day London festival and would have included a film market, something the festival had resolutely opposed.

Lastly, Film London would have worked more closely with the industry in attracting the public and promoting and marketing its films.

As a compromise in averting the new festival, a committee including Whitaker was formed to discuss strategies for the London festival’s future and key British film industry figures were surveyed about their views. Although this survey is now complete, Whitaker has complained that the film institute is reluctant to make its contents public.

“Our research said the industry wanted a better profile for its films,” Wootton said. “But it was split over whether the [festival] should become competitive.

“Sheila is a talented person and a good programmer, and I wish her well. But all I hope is that there’s not a further attempt to set up another film festival, for the good of audiences. Audiences would be confused, loyalties in the film industry would be split. And there might have been a double whammy: a competitive festival and a noncompetitive festival which both failed.”

Wootton believes the film institute remains the best body to run the festival: “We’re committed to improving its profile in a noncompetitive context. Everyone talks about the need for competition, but Toronto is a healthy festival, and it’s not competitive. It’s hard to say giving out more prizes at the end of the year after Cannes, Berlin and Venice would be meaningful.”

Another problem is that the film institute has historically been a high-minded body that rigorously stresses the cultural value of film and sometimes has been dismissive of its commercial aspects. Its location on the South Bank, bastion of high British culture, is telling; it is sandwiched between two august arts buildings, the National Theatre and Royal Festival Hall, which are easily visible and commanding from across the Thames.

Yet the National Film Theatre is cramped and hidden beneath the arches of Waterloo Bridge, the underside of which dominates the view from Wootton’s office.

“We’ve always been a poor relation on the South Bank,” he said. “We’re the guys squeezed under the bridge, the cuckoos in the nest. It reflects how film culture has been treated in Britain.”

But the film institute itself may be undergoing a cultural change. Its new chairman since Jan. 1 is British director Alan Parker (“Evita,” “Mississippi Burning,” “The Commitments”) who will base himself in London rather than Los Angeles between future film projects to oversee the film institute and support the festival. Parker, while passionately believing in film’s artistic values, is a populist rather than a cultural snob.

Parker has sympathy for the way Whitaker was treated, but he too is adamant that the film institute should continue to run the festival. However, he also insists the National Film Theatre must move from the South Bank as soon as it can: “You don’t need to be a brain surgeon to see that that building is just an architectural nightmare,” he said recently.

For his part, Wootton is delighted about Parker’s appointment: “He’s a good choice, he supports the [festival], he is an internationally acclaimed director who’s prepared to put himself about for the festival.”

And despite all the controversies and image problems, Wootton expects to enjoy this year’s festival.

“Not everyone, especially in the media, will like everything we’re doing,” he said. “But look at the range of the films we’re offering audiences, and my God, everyone’s got to like at least something.”