Digital Screen Network

Creation of a digital screen network; support for independent cinemas; and improving access to cinema for people with disabilities.

Fifteen million pounds of capital funding was delegated to the UK Film Council (now BFI) by the Arts Council of England, which is allocated as follows:

Digital Screen Network

The largest proportion has been used to create a network of screens dedicated to the exhibition of specialised films in locations across the UK where there is no such provision currently. 

Capital funding for cinemas 

This fund assists cinema operators to undertake and/or complete capital projects, particularly where the works are considered essential to the cinema's continued existence or of benefit to audiences that may currently be excluded (for example, by improving access for disabled cinemagoers).

The average Hollywood blockbuster opens on 300-plus screens across the UK; most independent films, restored classics, documentaries and foreign language films still struggle to reach over ten per cent of those screens.

Digital screening cuts the cost of releasing films (a digital copy costs around one tenth of a 35mm print). That's why UK Film Council (now BFI) and the Arts Council England created the Digital Screen Network – a £12 million investment to equip 240 screens in 210 cinemas across the UK with digital projection technology to give UK audiences much greater choice.

Cinemas in the network have already screened non-mainstream films including Control, This is England, Good Night and Good Luck and the Oscar®-winning The Lives of Others, as well as classics like Meet me in St Loius, The Wizard of Oz and Casablanca.

Digital Screen Network cinemas hosted the UK Film Council and BBC Two's Summer of British Films season - a sell out tour running from July to September 2007 featuring British classics such as Goldfinger, Brief Encounter, Billy Liar, Henry V, The Wicker Man, The Dam Busters and Withnail and I.