This week Third Window Films, who specialise in bringing Asian cinema to UK audiences, announced that they were no longer going to distribute films theatrically:
http://compactd.exblog.jp/15533802/
The first reason Third Window gives for this decision is the cost of having a film BBFC certificated for both cinema and home video.
This is something which disproportionately affects independent filmmakers and distributors, since they are paying the same as the majors for certification, this despite the obvious fact that their product is never going to sell in comparable quantities.
There's now an online petition urging the BBFC to reduce their costs:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/34821
Whether or not this will make any difference is another matter, but the mandatory requirement to have films certificated by a single agency seems like the kind of restrictive business practice that a supposedly pro-business government should be acting against.
Unless they're really only concerned with helping big business...
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