Dear British Film Institute,

Further to my previous requests, I would like to ask what the proportion of the films/titles screened by the BFI over the last 10 years were of British origin (i.e. where the country has a UK credit)?

By this, I am referring to every cinema screening programmed by the BFI, including any at BFI Southbank, BFI IMAX, or titles included in the BFI London Film Festival and BFI Flare at other venues.

I am looking for the data by calendar year (1 January to 31 December), for the ten years up to and including 2023: so for each year from 2014 to 2023, with both the raw numbers (of titles) and percentages please.

I understand that you can only supply the data from August 2014 onwards, so I will research that year myself using the relevant programme guides to estimate the numbers (your data is more accurate, I believe, representing programme changes).

Yours faithfully,

Mr T Morgan

Hi Sian,

Thank you for your reply. Happy New Year! I look forward to hearing from you about this request.

Yours sincerely,

Mr T Morgan

Hi Sian,

Television titles in the printed programmes just have “BBC” or the production company/broadcaster listed, without a country of origin. Are these included in the database searches, or does it only cover film titles which have a country listed? Please advise. It may not always be clear which country a TV production comes from. Based on what you have previously told me, the data includes ALL titles screened, including feature film, short films, and television.

Is it possible to focus my request exclusively on feature film titles, or not?

Yours sincerely,

Mr T Morgan

Hi Sian,

Having looked at the programme guide for January 2014, I can see that short films are not defined as such, and it may be too time-consuming to check the length of each title in the guides. It also depends whether the database can differentiate between shorts, features and TV.

I could probably work out the country of origin for TV programmes, if those cannot be filtered out.

Also, if the data is only available from August 2014 onwards, can you please clarify whether this starts at 1 August 2014, or another date that month? Rather than me analysing the whole of 2014 from the printed programmes, I could just do the months which are not part of the database, and combine these figures with the data from the complete months in 2014. So if the dataset starts on 1 August 2014, I could just gather figures manually from January to July 2014.

Yours sincerely,

Mr T Morgan

Hi Sian,

Thank you for getting back to me. A) Yes, I think I would prefer to refine my search to feature film titles (I assume that is what you mean by “feature titles”). That was the basis of my June 2023 request, although it may not have been clear.

If so, I would like to know how to identify the relevant titles in the programme guides: for example, what is classed as a feature film (a specific length)? It appears that British TV titles have the production company or broadcaster listed instead of the country, whilst this may not be the case for non-UK television.

Also, the screenings of short film compilations do not list every title included. So I want to be able to compile the programme guide data from 2014 in a way that is comparable to that which comes from the database. It may be a case of looking at how titles are listed in the programme guides.

The answer to B) is more simple - yes. It would be useful to confirm what the earliest complete month in 2014 in the database is.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Mr T Morgan

Dear Paul,

Many thanks for getting back to me with this information. However, I am still awaiting a response to my messages of 11/12 January this year. Essentially, I am looking to find out how I can research the data for the rest of 2014, from January to July. Therefore, can you tell me:
1. Does the database start on 1 August 2014?
2. What counts as a feature film screening? For example, the Buster Keaton season in January/February 2014 included multiple shorter films shown as one screening. The BFI Filmography defines a UK feature film as 40 minutes or more in length. So would one screening comprised of two individual 20 minute films together count as a feature, based on this duration? How do you define a “feature” for screenings generally?

If you can advise me on how to extract the data from the BFI Southbank programme guides from 2014, that would be appreciated please.

Yours sincerely,

Mr T Morgan

Hi Paul and Sian,

Based on the spreadsheet, it would appear that the database starts on 1 August 2014, as it lists screenings from that date onwards. However, I await confirmation of this.

I also note that the second spreadsheet has no year of release listed, which seems a rather strange omission.

January to June 2019 has two Doctor Who serials included as “features”, which must surely be a mistake. A Dr Who title is also in the 2017 and 2016 lists. I wonder why these television shows have been included. 2016 features The Moving Pictures Of Mitchell And Kenyon, which is clearly erroneous too.

I look forward to hearing from you in response to my previous message.

Yours sincerely,

Mr T Morgan

Hi Sian,

Good to hear from you, and thanks for the update. I look forward to receiving clarification on my questions.

Yours sincerely,

Mr T Morgan

Hi Sian,

Thank you for getting back to me with this. It would therefore appear that I can obtain the necessary information from the programme guides from January to July 2014.

I asked “So would one screening comprised of two individual 20 minute films together count as a feature, based on this duration?”
Based on what you’ve said, the data is intended to include all screenings which were feature-length, ie. over 60 minutes, which were comprised of films, rather than television or other events. Is that correct?

Yours sincerely,

Mr T Morgan

Hi Sian,

Thank you for clarifying.

Yours sincerely,

Mr T Morgan

Hi Paul / Sian,

In Report 1, there is only one screening date in the sheets for the years 2014 to 2016. I would assume many of these would have had multiple screenings, so does the data only list the first screening for these films?

There is a second column for screening date and time in 2017, so I am wondering if that sheet lists the second or last screening of these titles. 2018 and 2019 again just list one screening date and time. Does it relate to the first screening?

Report 2 is clearer, as “First Event” and “Last Event” presumably refers to the first and last screenings. There are no dates or times for 2020 to 2023, which is fine, as I don’t require this information.

I would be grateful if you could clarify the above for me please.

Yours sincerely,

Mr T Morgan

Hi Sian,

Thanks, I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Mr T Morgan

Hi Sian,

Many thanks for this. So just to clarify, the screening date provided for the years 2014 to 2016 is the date of first screening?

Regarding the second question, that’s fine. I wasn’t looking for that information, but it’s just useful to know exactly what the data is referring to.

Yours sincerely,

Mr T Morgan

Hi Sian,

Thanks for confirming, just wasn’t 100% sure from what you wrote.

Yours sincerely,

Mr T Morgan