“Art itself is borne of diversity, of celebrating the different. As our most accessible and powerful art form, film must reflect the society in which it is made and tell stories that speak to the many different people who exist within that society. That isn’t an optional extra or a nice to have – it’s a moral and social imperative and, by ensuring audiences are served with films they want to see, it also makes good business sense.” Amanda Neville
As a Lottery distributor and public funder, the BFI seeks to reflect the public – in the films we fund, the programmes we support, the audiences who watch them, and the filmmakers, actors and crews who make them.
For this reason, we have introduced the BFI Diversity Standards, to guide both our own activities and the projects that we fund. The Standards focus on disability, gender, race, age and sexual orientation (as they pertain to the Equality Act 2010) and also seek to ensure that people from lower socio-economic groups are better represented.
We are asking projects that we support to embrace these standards.