A Film Manifesto

“Over a seven-year period, the US market share of box-office takings in British cinemas was between 63% and 80%. The UK share, which was mainly for American co-productions, was between 15% and 30%; films from Europe and the rest of the world took only 2% to 3%. So for most people it’s almost impossible to have a choice of films; you get what you’re given. Just imagine, if you went into the library and the bookshelves were stacked with 63% to 80% American fiction…and all the other writers in the whole world just 3%. Imagine that in the art galleries, in terms of pictures; imagine it in the theatres. You can’t, it is inconceivable—and yet this is what we do to the cinema, which we think is a most beautiful art.”