PUTTNAM URGES FILMMAKERS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY BATTLE

Last updated: Wednesday, June 24, 2009

PUTTNAM URGES FILMMAKERS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY BATTLE

DAVID PUTTNAM has urged British moviemakers to find ways of making positive films about integrity and life lessons in an effort to thwart growing film propaganda funded by hardline members of the British National Party.

David Putnam at Jerry Schatzberg - private view held at the Atlas Gallery.
London, England - 06.07.06

As part of his keynote address at the Edinburgh Film Festival in Scotland on Sunday (21Jun09), the revered film producer, aka Lord Puttnam of Queensgate, CBE, insisted more arts cash and private funding had to be made available for stirring message-laden films like his acclaimed projects The Killing Fields, The Mission and Chariots of Fire.

He said, "I'm not naive enough to pretend that on its own cinema can cut through, let alone solve significant social or cultural problems; but through illuminating the sometimes very different lives and experiences of others... it can help create that vital context of understanding within which the type of change that sometimes looks impossible begins to look at least possible.

"If we ever cease to believe that we will also cease to make movies. In a tiny way it's what I was trying to do in the films I produced that dealt with factual or historical events; most obviously in The Killing Fields, The Mission and Cal, but also in their own ways, Chariots of Fire, The Duellists and even Local Hero.

"In every case I tried to produce films that adhered to some definable concept of cultural integrity.

"We desperately need some of our most talented filmmakers to find ways of helping to ensure that the insidious propaganda of (BNP leader) Nick Griffin and his gang of thugs fails in its attempt to capture impressionable young minds in some of our more vulnerable communities.

"If the BNP are allowed to get away with exploiting complex issues to their own God knows what ends, then we have stepped on to a very slippery slope indeed."

Source: WENN

| Wednesday, June 24, 2009

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PUTTNAM URGES FILMMAKERS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY BATTLE

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