§ Lord Corbett of Castle Valeasked Her Majesty's Government:
When they now expect to respond to the report of the Committee for Ethnic Minority Employment in Film sent to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in March 2001. [HL3365]
§ The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Blackstone)The DCMS and the Film Council were closely involved in the work of the committee which was launched at DCMS. At the request of DCMS, the Film Council is considering how the report can be taken forward in the context of its own cultural diversity strategy and will be publishing a policy statement later in the year.
Under its existing policies, the Film Council has already taken a number of steps which will help people from ethnic minorities to become more involved in film. Some examples follow.
The Film Council makes it a condition of funding that all applicants demonstrate active equal opportunities policies, and it is making its funds known and accessible to black and Asian film-makers at every opportunity. The council has created a Fusion Group, including each of its production funds, which seeks out and supports film-makers from ethnic minorities, and is currently working on a hothouse scheme for writers; promotion of ethnic minority actors; networking events for ethnic minority filmmakers to meet others in the industry; and specifically designed training courses.
Each training provider funded by the Film Council is set targets for the diversity of participants who attend their programmes. The Film Council works with the training providers to help them to meet these targets. It has established a development internship programme—a 14-month full-time programme which integrates on and off-the-job training aimed at trainees at script reader level with strict targets for participation of ethnic and other minority groups. The aim of the screen-writing scholarship programme is to increase access to these courses for people from low income and ethnic minority backgrounds.
A number of black and Asian film-making teams and projects have been taken to the Independent Feature Project in New York, the Rotterdeam 140WA International Film Festival and the Dinard Film Festival for British films.