Daily Archives: August 3, 2020

Part I: From muscle power to steam power

Conflicts around fundamental issues of energy arent new, they just underline how difficult a transition can be.

Anyone interested in the politics of energy today would do well to study the worlds first energy revolution, one that is often called the age of steam.

What you see is a transition between two forms of what is now called dispatchable energy; that is, energy you can control, rely on and send to places.

There was always non-dispatchable energy, like wind and water, but for many applications and a growing economy this wouldnt suffice.

The original form of dispatchable energy was muscle power, often forced muscle power. But around the second half of the 19th century dispatchable power increasingly looks like steam and coal.

But the transition from reliance on labour intensive muscle power to the steam engine wasnt easy. And with this transition came another social transition that was deeply connected, the abolition of forced muscle power or slavery, and its ugly brother indentured labour.

The large 35 tons steam hammer at the Woolwich arsenal, engraving from The Graphic, 1874, Great ... [+] Britain, 19th century. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

As the steam revolution gathers pace, we see numerous attempts at abolishing these types of forced labour; but reforms were to take many years, and many attempts at legislation and numerous uprisings of captives.

It's instructive to understand how one system of dispatchable energy would eventually be replaced by another system, to where we find ourselves today.

A long journey to the new dispatchable

Before 1860, if you wanted to move on land, you took a horse; if you wanted to pump water out of a mine, it would be done by a human with a bucket.

Wind and water did much of the heavy lifting, but sometimes, for properly dispatchable power muscle of both animal and human forms were the only solution.

These of course were powered by carbohydrates, which in turn could be created on farms and plantations which often used forced labour. So the ancient muscle energy paradigm had a certain simplicity.

As the 19th century progressed, movement increasingly could involve steam engines and thermodynamics. Calories for doing mechanical work were more and more likely to come from lumps of coal, and less likely to come from carbohydrate food fed to workers and draught animals.

By 1865, the same year the American Civil War over slavery was drawing to its bloody end, steam traction engines were just starting to replace muscle power on farms.

The problems along the way tell us much about what we can expect from replacing another form of dispatchable energy and trying to create a more modern one.

Lessons for todays energy revolution

In the development of steam, there was a lot of transitional technology and knowledge that had to be acquired first. From Watts first engine that pumped water to Stephensons rocket that moved people, lots of technological inventive steps were required.

The American Civil War and the numerous different acts and amendments that were required to achieve the abolition of slavery showed how reluctant we were to get rid of forced muscle power.

From a 19th Century point of view, getting rid of your coerced muscle workforce, however much it was the right thing to do, was still an act of faith. It was a moral vote, which hoped for a more technologically enabled future. That future was coming, but coming at the same slow pace that slavery was being dismantled.

As we stand on the brink of a new energy revolution, there are many things that would look familiar to our forebears two hundred years ago.

Perhaps most striking, is how difficult and politically charged is the transition, and how polarised are the two standpoints of old and new forms of energy.

Were not fighting a civil war over it yet, but things could hardly get anymore bitter.

In Australia so far, four prime ministers have changed over this fault line in our politics and no doubt there will be many more. There are echoes and parallels in Japan, California and in Poland where the regulator has described the situation as a tragedy.

In Germany, the long running battle between the lignite coal mining interests and renewables goes unabated. It has seen letter bombs sent and the rise of the extreme right wing populist movement, the AFD.

The government has told miners that they are part of an essential service to the state; but at the same time the same government is planning Germanys exit from coal altogether.

Such mixed messages are now typical of the predicament many countries find themselves in.

A lump of coal in Parliament

In Australia, this deeply embedded conflict is just as acute.

When Scott Morrison, the Australian Prime Minister, walked into the Australian Parliament with a lump of coal in his hand, saying theres nothing to fear he was speaking for a huge number of his constituents who also believe that getting rid of coal is reckless.

These people ask why their electricity keeps costing more and more, despite the promises of cheap solar electricity. Pauline Hanson, a veteran outspoken Australian right wing politician also speaks for the same audience.

They dont buy the romance of the renewable, they want the certainty, the dispatchability, of the fossil.

And who can blame them? We never reckoned for electricity prices going to an all time high.

Perhaps most vociferous in their criticism of what are perceived as white elephant projects like Snowy 2.0 is Bruce Mountain, who says it simply fills a gap in the national discourse.

On the other side there are the renewables supporters in all shades, in many parts of Europe and the West, including the more extreme Extinction Rebellion.

They look to the bushfires in Australia and say that our planet is on fire, set alight by the higher temperatures created by the carbon in fossil fuels.

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS - JANUARY 16: Members of Extintion Rebellion are preparing for the ... [+] demonstration that will take place in front of the Australian Embassy on January 16, 2020 in The Hague, Netherlands. Extinction Rebellion has demonstrated in front of the Australian embassy in protest of what they consider to be ineffective measures by the Australian government to fight the fires that plague the country.

They block roads and bring cities to a halt. Theirs is a moral crusade and justifies higher prices, extending fuel poverty to the many, and are ready to live with blackouts caused by uncertain amounts of electricity at peak demand times.

Indeed the moral dimension reminds us of the abolitionists fighting slavery.

Are these two sides going to magically heal their rifts and start understanding each other?

Theres no sign of that yet.

More significantly its becoming clear that its not just an ideological conflict.

In a report by McKinsey entitled Germanys energy transition at the crossroads, the consultancy throws a big question mark over the entire project of renewable energy and its integration into the grid.

It says Germany is in trouble on all three major counts: Energy security, price and of course, emissions targets. Germanys situation was summed up by Die Welt as disastrous.

In the second of this multi-part blog, well look at why this fault line is so difficult to overcome, and why so often it results in waste. Well see how its born of a new technological system thats being honed as we speak, one that is both audacious and innovative and some would say inevitable at the same time.

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What The Struggles Of The Past Teach Us About Our Next Energy System - Forbes

Before COVID-19 struck, the city of Windsor, Ont. was looking forward to itsbiggest Emancipation Day celebrations in recent years on Aug. 1. And, thanks to the efforts of local history buffs, it was well on its way to bringing back an event that recalled the days when Windsor attracted famous civil rights activists and Motown stars to celebrate the anniversary of the abolition of slavery in most of the British colonies in 1834.

The history and recent revival of Windsors Emancipation Day is being closely followed by Tonya Sutherland, who graduated from the University of Toronto with a masters degree in museum studies this year. Building on research for her 2018 capstone project,Sutherland and two other women from the Toronto area retired teacher Catherine MacDonald and actor and producer Audra Gray sought to bring this chapter of Black Canadian history to a wider audience.

In the 1950s and early1960s, hundreds of thousands of people would arrive in Windsor for the multi-day festivities that took place the first weekend in August. They heard from figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Eleanor Roosevelt and watched the Supremes, Stevie Wonder and the Temptations,whocrossed the Detroit River to perform at Windsors Jackson Park. But by the late 1960s, Windsors Emancipation Day festivities had begun to lose steam.

These celebrations were some of the biggest in North America, but they didnt remain in peoples consciousness, says Sutherland. Its a bit of a shame how theyve been mostly forgotten.

But efforts are underwayto make Emancipation Day a big deal again. When Windsors Emancipation Day Committee announced it was cancelling this years events, it also said it was planning for an significant event in2021.

In the meantime, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto will mark Emancipation Day with a special ROM Connects talk moderated by Sutherland on Aug.5, which follows an earlier talk given this month.

Working under the umbrella of the Jackson Park Project, named for the park where the Emancipation Day celebrations were held in Windsor, Sutherlands goal is to create a digital archive of historical material.

As for Sutherlands partners in the project, MacDonald is aiming to createeducational resources for use in classrooms that would be hosted by the digital archive while Gray wants to produce a drama television series based on the annual festivities as well as a documentary. The documentarywould chronicle both the teams behind-the-scenes journey and a proposal before Parliament to formally recognize Emancipation Day nationally (Ontario officiallyrecognized the day in 2008).

Audra was watching TV one day and came across this documentary, The Greatest Freedom Show on Earth. It was a larger history of Emancipation Day, somewhat focused on Windsor, but with a broader view, says Sutherland. She wondered why she had never heard of it.

Thinking it a story worth dramatizing, Gray linked up with MacDonald, her former teacher who was also interested in Canadas Black history. MacDonalds husband mentioned the project to his co-worker, Sutherlands father, who in turn told his daughter about it.

I tend to get really invested in the personal element of history, says Sutherland who alsoearned an undergraduate degree in English and history from U of T in 2016. That interest caused her friends to suggest she might want to check out the Faculty of Informations museum studies program. The idea resonated with Sutherland, who had also been inspired watching the TV programMysteries at the Museum.

During their first research trip to Windsor in 2018, Sutherland, MacDonald and Gray spent a week researching and filming. Irene Moore Davis, president of the Essex County Black Historical Research Society, shared a wealth of information with the visitors. While we say this is a history thats not known to a broader audience, people from Windsor whose families were involved are very aware, says Sutherland. Irene has been really key to our project because she has quite a large collection of family history including boxes of documents. Her family was very involved in Emancipation Day.

While in Windsor, Sutherland visited the University of Windsor archives, looked at hundreds of photographsand examined the programs printed annually, which typically included a letter from the mayor of Windsor and sometimes featured messages from prominent speakers. From magazines, you could see who was buying ad space and supporting the celebrations, she says, adding that the documents helped with her primary research.

Sutherlanddigitized the materials as part of her capstone project with the goal of creating a permanent digital archive. Ive learned all the things that go into creating an archive and a digital archive, she says. The more I learn, the more it teaches me what I dont know.

That also goes for Black Canadian history, says Sutherland, who adds that Canadians often dont know what became of the people who arrived in places like Windsor via the Underground Railroad. Was everything amazing? Did they face racism and struggle?

The holes in our knowledge speak to a larger unknowing, she says. This whole thing has been extremely eye-opening to me.

MacDonald says the history of Windsors Emancipation Day is a perfect subject for teaching because it is so multi-faceted. Its the story of Canada and the Black diaspora. Its the story of English and French, and the story of Canada and the U.S. Its the story of two cities.

Black families were often divided between Detroit and Windsor with cousins walking across the frozen Detroit River in winter and holding large family get-togethers at Emancipation Day events in the summer. A Detroit historian, Kimberly Simmons, has spent more than a decade trying to get the Detroit River declared a UNESCO World Heritage site for the role it played in the underground railroad.

Meanwhile Sutherland, MacDonald and Gray continue to move forward on their Windsor projects. The teaser for Grays documentary debuted last summer at Emancipation Day. MacDonald is working with local Black educators, members of Windsors Black historical society and the Ontario Black History Society to produce lesson plans. And Sutherland has produced a digital archive feasibility report as her capstone project in museum studies.

In some ways, the work they are doing emulates that done almost a century ago by Windsor citizens. In 1932, they, too, decided that they wanted to build up their small Emancipation Day celebrations into a much bigger event and eventually turned their vision into reality.

Despite COVID-19, the work behind the scenes on bringing Emancipation Day to a wider audiencecontinues. Were now trying to seek out and establish viable and more stable sources of funding, Sutherland says.

Read more:

U of T alumna aims to bring the history of Emancipation Day, on Aug. 1, to a wider audience - News@UofT

By Marc Levy Sunday, August 2, 2020A spread from the magazine Freedom School with art by Latisha Wade and PD Klein.

Heres a gift for a time cultural opportunities feel exhausted and the latest Netflix offering feels meaningless: A free, 100-page, sumptuously produced magazine full of voices and images most of us have never encountered or considered, with (as editors and graduate students Najha Zigbi-Johnson and Lesedi Graveline say in a foreword) poems, essays and short stories, photos, paintings and other visuals grounded in themes of afro-futurism, ecology, community, lineage and ancestors, abolition, embodiment and pleasure, art and movement.

The magazine, an often surreal and playful piece of art called Freedom School, became available online July 17 at freedomschool-litmag.com.

Thumb through its pages the format allows the reader to mimic actual page turning for a richer experience than a traditional website for a melding of words and images from people who are under-heard, and in many cases previously never heard. Thats on purpose: The editors goal is to be democratizing in a way that makes the magazines birthplace at the Harvard Divinity School even more surprising.

So Los Angeles-based filmmaker, architect and artist Kordae Jatafa Henry is interviewed in Freedom School (talking about how he connects his work to traditional African dance and ritual, as well as about how George Floyd and Breonna Taylor makes him think about the future). But theres also work by Aliyah Blackmore, whose mix of poetry, art and essay on themes of ancestry and queer black identity called Why Do You Wake Before the Sun? appears because Graveline knows them Graveline went to school with them.

Harvard produces publications that dont usually reflect the work of community advocates and leaders of people who dont go to places like Harvard. It was really important for us that we pulled from communities beyond Harvard and reflect an array of identities and experiences, Zigbi-Johnson said last week, as the editors sat for an interview by phone. (Some comments have been edited and condensed.) For us this publication is very much its own commentary on the limitations of academic scholarship.

Surprise again, then, to hear how Freedom School came about from within Americas most hallowed ivory towers: A class itself called Freedom School: A Seminar on Theory and Practice for Black Studies in the United States that Zigbi-Johnson created, pitched and got funded with doctoral student and Black Lives Matter leader Karlene Griffiths Sekou. It was a wholly student-led class focused on black thought and imagination that was made open to people from outside Harvard. (Assistant professor of African American religions Todne Thomas midwifed the idea.) This course came to be because of the lack of resources for particularly black students at Harvard who wanted to apply their studies in practical ways, Zigbi-Johnson said. One of the projects the class decided to do was the magazine.

With designers Giovanna Araujo and Chindo Nkenke-Smith, the editors began thinking last fall about Freedom School as a publication, though work began in earnest in March, after coronavirus arrived and was essentially done entirely via Zoom video conference.

There was a learning curve, Graveline said, but the reception to the final product has been encouraging from the halls of Harvard to among hometown audiences. I really didnt think that members of my community in little Auburn, Massachusetts, which is a very small, Central Massachusetts town, would necessarily want to read something like this theyre not even close to being proximate to black radical scholarship or thought, Graveline said. The fact that they could engage with this was really moving for me, because that was our goal.

To have my neighbors read it and say, I love that poem by Arianna Monet, the way shes talking about black women is so beautiful I love that, Graveline said.

People also want printed editions of the magazine, but those mass copies dont exist. Part of what we wanted for this magazine is that it would be free for everyone, and that there would be no limit to accessing it. Thats largely why its online right now, Graveline said, describing also the pleasure of watching word spread through social media in communities representing an eclectic list of contributors.

Another democratizing element of the publication is the several love letters Graveline delights in seeing scattered through Freedom School, which address their authors origins. (For Graveline, a grandmother and great-grandmother in Botswana, who I dont think would be mentioned in a Harvard publication for any reason its just so beautiful to see where people come from.)

Its important to highlight that we didnt do all this by ourselves. We are a part of a collective, Graveline said. We would not be here without our communities, without our ancestors. And we are doing this for those who will come after us.

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Editors opened the doors to Freedom School, then even wider as magazine of black thought - Cambridge Day

SALT LAKE CITY The Black Lives Matter movement has drawn tens of millions into the streets to participate in protests taking place every day since May. The #BlackLivesMatter hashtag has been used by millions of social media users to call attention to cases of police brutality since 2013, and hundreds of groups bearing the name have materialized in nearly every major city in the United States. But if you look for a headquarters, a national spokesperson or a unified mission for the cause, you wont find anything.

The decentralized nature of Black Lives Matter has caused confusion over what it actually stands for, said Stefahn Rich, 30, the owner of Stefs Place, a barbershop in Salt Lake City.

Theres this misconception that its a particular organization, said Rich. Or, it gets portrayed as a cause of a small group of people, when its all of these communities, all of these people and organizations fighting together.

Customers at Stefs Place who donate $100 to Black Lives Matter receive a $150 gift card to use toward haircuts, shaves and other services. But since there is no centralized Black Lives Matter organization, Rich lets patrons choose between three institutions that accept donations: Utahs chapter of the ACLU, the NAACP legal defense fund and Campaign Zero, a nonprofit dedicated to ending police violence.

To me, it means they support the movement that Black lives actually do matter and they are very much endangered and threatened, not just by police and government, but every day by people around them, said Rich.

Some recoil from Black Lives Matter because Patrisse Cullors, one of the women credited with starting the movement, described herself and her co-founders as trained Marxists. Others are apprehensive about the stance on the family held by one of the most visible organizations, the Black Lives Matter Global Network. Their website, BlackLivesMatter.com, says they are queer-affirming and seek to disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement. Still others think they cant say they support Black Lives Matter unless they agree with abolishing the police.

But according to Alvin Tillery, professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy at Northwestern University, none of these ideas are foundational to the movement as a whole. With hundreds of locally organized groups, the movement does not have a singular identity, and there are no solutions to discrimination and policing that everyone agrees on, he said.

That fractured nature can make it difficult for media to represent the movement in an authentic way. While journalists tend to look for a spokesperson, a website and a number to contact, many of the grassroots groups organizing demonstrations have none of the above.

The fact that the movement has no leader could ultimately be its downfall, said Tillery. But in many ways, its a strength. Because there is no centralized leadership, there is a place within the movement for everyone who believes there is a problem with race and policing no matter their own race, age or political party, Tillery said.

If you support Black Lives Matter, it means you understand theres a need for police reform, that you recognize there are systemic inequalities around race, and you support any range of solutions, from diversity training, to defunding, to abolition.

Three women, Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors, are responsible for coining the phrase Black Lives Matter and mobilizing demonstrators following the 2013 acquittal of the man who killed Trayvon Martin. According to USA Today, Cullors created the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag after Garza first used the phrase in a Facebook post.

The hashtag has been instrumental in raising awareness and spreading information, said Simon Howard, a professor of psychology at Marquette University in Milwaukee who specializes in prejudice and discrimination.

Its basically cyberactivism. Everyone can play a role because not everyone feels comfortable protesting or being in the streets, said Howard. Its not the end all, but we see how monumental it is when people all over the world are tweeting #BlackLivesMatter and protesting anti-Black police violence in counties like South Africa and France.

Cullors and her co-founders wanted the movement to be decentralized so that people would be motivated to step up locally to fight for change in their own communities, Howard said. But the lack of formal structure makes it difficult to find reliable information about the movement as a whole because each community leader may have a different point of view.

BlackLivesMatter.org is a WordPress site with links to a handful of articles and a couple tweets. Many news sources reference BlackLivesMatter.com, the website for a group called the Black Lives Matter Global Network, which is not a formal nonprofit. Registered 501(c)(3) Thousand Currents partners with the organization to provide the legal and administrative framework to enable BLM to fulfill its mission, according to its website.

The Black Lives Matter Global Network did not respond to the Deseret News requests for comment.

While the Black Lives Matter Global Network has 16 affiliate chapters in cities such as Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles, there are hundreds of other local Black Lives Matters groups across the country that dont associate with the network, including several Utah-based Black Lives Matter chapters.

The leaders of several Black Lives Matter groups in Utah say they are frustrated that most people assume there is a single organization. While Lex Scott, the founder of Black Lives Matter Utah, works closely with the leaders of Northern Utah and Southern Utah chapters, a different group called Black Lives Matter Salt Lake City has separated themselves from Scott and the events she leads.

Ashley Finley, one of the founding members of Black Lives Matter Salt Lake City, said she used to organize with Scotts group, but she saw a need in the community for a chapter that would call for the eventual abolition of police as well as focus more on queer and trans-affirming work. She and her fellow organizers started the group in June and their Instagram page already has more than 12,000 followers. However, Finley said the main thing that distinguishes her group from others in Utah is that they intend to join the Global Network.

Blackness is not a monolith, neither is activism, said Finley. If one group doesnt fit your personal ideals, there are many different groups you can explore.

Scott said she doesnt want to bash the Global Network. She acknowledges they have done good things, but she doesnt think she should have to report to their authority.

I feel more comfortable running independently because I have control over what our chapter does, said Scott, who made it clear that her group has no political affiliations, is not involved in advocacy related to family structures and does not promote any kind of economic theory, such as Marxism.

We may have some different ideals that dont necessarily match with them. That doesnt make them bad people, but we have some different ideologies.

Jacarri Kelley, who lives in Roy, runs the Northern Utah chapter of Black Lives Matter and does not affiliate with the Global Network either. Kelley said there is a lot of confusion about the name, but she has chosen to stick with it because the message of Black Lives Matter is powerful.

I cant stand how people are using the movement now, how theyre using Black Lives Matter when they are looting or destroying public property, said Kelley. At the end of the day, we shouldnt have to change the name. For Black people, its empowering. Whenever I have a youth event and they say, Black Lives Matter, just seeing the pride in their eyes, thats what I live for.

Howard believes that misconceptions about the movement ultimately stem from a lack of information.

People are fearful of Black Lives Matter, largely because of the word Black, said Howard. In an American context, the word Black typically has a negative connotation, like when someone says Black music or Black neighborhoods, Howard said.

If Im ignorant, if I dont know or have knowledge about a particular person or organization, whats filling those gaps is the negative stereotypes associated with blackness, said Howard.

The Black Lives Matter Foundation, created by R. Ray Barnes, a 67-year-old music producer who lives in Santa Clarita, California, has been another flashpoint for controversy surrounding the Black Lives Matter name. Barnes started the foundation 2015, after his wifes ex-husband was killed by Los Angeles police. He said that the foundation has raised a few hundred thousand dollars over the past five years, and its main activity has been supporting and telling the stories of Black veterans through the Peaceful Warriors Foundation. Recently, Barnes independent foundation has made headlines because corporate donors have allegedly confused it with the Black Lives Matter Global Network, which also calls itself Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc. on its website, even though Barnes owns all URLs related to the name.

Barnes said he is cooperating with the Charitable Trust of California on an investigation to sort out discrepancies. In addition, Barnes said he has received cease and desist orders from the states of New York and Florida, despite his claims that he has never solicited donations in those states.

Its a whole lot of confusion, said Barnes.

While Barnes said the ultimate goal for his foundation is to help create unity between the police and the community, he has no connection with any other Black Lives Matter groups. He does not organize marches, and he does not agree with defunding the police. While he expressed frustration over the confusion between his organization and others, he said there is not necessarily any animosity between them.

To be in a feud, you have to be in touch with someone. Ive never spoken with anyone from those organizations, said Barnes.

Tillery said splintering is normal in a movement. Black Lives Matter can be compared to other social movements seen in the U.S. and Europe since the 1980s, like the Green Power movement and Occupy Wall Street, which also had a horizontal membership and leadership structure, he said. These movements stand in contrast to the African American civil rights movement, which was led by people like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Without a central figure who can act as a strong negotiator, its hard to create lasting change on a national level, Tillery said.

Im worried that were going to have this mass wave of protests and a lot of people who want to make reforms, but no one with the moral authority to carry this movement to victory, said Tillery. Theres all of these steps beyond getting people to go and march and demand the arrest of officers, and it doesnt seem like BLM has that stuff figured out. And thats very consistent with other movements.

At the same time, Tillery is impressed by the sheer number of people, especially millennials and members of Generation Z, that the Black Lives Matter movement has mobilized.

This is an exciting time in America, said Tillery. Theres tremendous opportunity, but movements are messy.

Rich agrees that this is an exciting time for the country. He says his barbershop is a place of community and conversation, and over the past few months, hes had many opportunities to discuss racial issues with his customers.

Theres not really a cut and dry way around it. People just need to keep fighting, keep their foot on the gas said Rich. Everybody has a different opinion and different outcomes that they would like to see, but I dont think that that detracts from the movement.

Continued here:

Black Lives Matter: Making sense of the hashtag, movement and protests - Deseret News

It is now just over 10 years since the shock news of the abolition of the UK Film Council (UKFC) by David Camerons coalition government. Earlier this week,Screen looked at the events surrounding the abolition and the fallout from it, and asked senior UKFC executives and board members how effectively they believe the British Film Institute which inherited key UKFC functions and 44 staff roles in April 2011 was able to fill the void that was created. Now, we consider the achievements of the UKFC, and the degree to which it succeeded at achieving its original aims.

The Film Council (later UK Film Council) was created in 2000 after Culture Secretary Chris Smith commissioned a comprehensive review of film policy, A Bigger Picture, and as a consequence of lobbying efforts by David (later Lord) Puttnam and Lord Attenborough.

With the report recommending consolidation of government film bodies, Smith asked Alan Parker, then chair of the British Film Institute (BFI), to chair the new organisation, with Stewart Till president of international at Polygram Filmed Entertainment from 1992-1999 and president of Universal International Pictures in 1999-2000 as deputy chair. BFI director John Woodward was appointed CEO.

The Film Council absorbed the British Film Commission, and the filmmaking activities of both British Screen and the BFI Production Board. It also took over the granting of Lottery money for film from the Arts Council including for the three franchises that had been awarded at Cannes 1997 to funnel 90m of Lottery money into film, which were Duncan Kenworthy and Andrew Macdonalds DNA; Pathe, in alliance with an array of producers including Thin Man and Fragile Films; and the Film Consortium, which combined Scala, Skreba, Parallax and Greenpoint with Virgin Cinemas and Carlton Film Distributors.

Paul Trijbits (head of UKFC New Cinema Fund, 2000-2006): You need to always look at it from the lens as to: what was there before? The Arts Council distributing lottery money for film, nobody thought that was a good idea. The only people who thought that was a brilliant idea were the three that got the Lottery franchises. Everybody knew it was a disaster.

Having the British Film Commission in a crummy office in Baker Street, and British Screen somewhere else it worked in a sort of British way, but it wasnt very cohesive. Most other countries had one national agency for film, and it always would encompass exhibition, cultural activity, education, strategy, production, development and distribution. [Bringing the functions together] felt at the time the right thing to do.

Robert Jones (head of UKFC Premiere Fund, 2000-2005): Its important to remember that period, because that was one of the primary reasons that the Film Council was formed because of the massive negative publicity on use of Lottery money by the likes of the Daily Mail, around the fact that money was going into films that just werent being seen.

The Film Council came into being amidst a lot of enthusiastic ambition, but also managed to disaffect a lot of people who they were effectively replacing. A lot of people werent happy about the demise of British Screen. A lot of people at the BFI were not happy that this seemingly Blairite New Labour quango was being formed.

Carol Comley (head of strategic development, UKFC and BFI, 2000-2020): From my perspective, the UK desperately needed a body such as the Film Council. It was very different from the BFI, where I had worked before. But it was a difference that was needed in order to achieve the objectives for a vibrant culture and competitive industry.

If youre organisationally not weighted down by history, what may be termed encumbrance of all sorts, and if youve got a government or a set of political arrangements that are going to help you fly your kite, then organisationally you have the best possible prospects for success enabling the Film Council to positively reposition UK film internationally.

Vince Holden (head of production finance, UK Film Council, 2000-2011): When I took over the Arts Council portfolio, its projected recoupment rate was 10%. They invested about 42m over the years, and they were targeting a 10% return. I brought in a royalty analyst and money chaser to aggressively chase revenues, and we got their final return up to 21%.

The [Arts Council] franchises were a fricking mess when we took them over. We took a projected 15-18% return, and converted it into a 40% return. That rigorous policing of the franchise deals, getting better terms, policing royalty statements, auditing distributors, got 8m-plus over and above what they were earning before we joined.

Lottery money was on the decline virtually from the day I walked through the door, every year. Which is why the drive to try and make sure that I uncovered every stone, and got back as much money from our investments to make up the gap, was important.

Paul Trijbits: One of the things we did, we pulled out the Arts Council application form, which ran to 40 pages and was asking all those questions of everybody about every bit of the Lotteries Act they needed to adhere to, if they were so lucky to get the money. Well, hold on, all those obligations only apply if youre a recipient of the money. The first stage is a creative assessment. That meant that the application form went down from 40 pages to four pages, and we could turn stuff around much quicker. To me, that demonstrates the can-do mentality, the professional-input mentality of what we were asked to do at that time.

Will Evans (UKFC director of business affairs, 2002-2011): I was very nervous about accepting the job because, having been in the private sector for 22 years and not being the most patient person, I thought, God, this is the public sector, its going to be like the gas board. I thought it would be forms in triplicate. I was massively surprised that it wasnt like that at all. It was a very fast-moving organisation. It wasnt bureaucratic. It was a smallish organisation, probably 90 people top to bottom at its height.

Stewart Till (deputy chair of UKFC board 2000-2004, then chairman 2004-2009): For the board, we wanted to get the creme de la creme of the British film industry, we wanted to represent all sectors. So there was quite an aggressive search and hire for the board. In terms of executives, the philosophy was, Its the public sector, but intervening in a commercial marketplace.

Paul Trijbits: Having a leader like Alan [Parker] was brilliant because it was somebody, even if you might not have agreed, at least you knew he did it with chutzpah and style and conviction. And the board was extraordinary: people I could call upon were the likes of Tim Bevan [Working Title], Nigel Green [Entertainment Film Distributors], Paul Webster [Film4]. That initial board was a really positive, proactive, smart group of people who had genuinely nothing but the best interest at heart for the British film industry.

The board never interfered with any of the decisions about individual projects. The people you might expect to be most sceptical about some of the things that we did, that were right on the edge of what a feature film might be, were the most supportive.

I particularly reference Bloody Sunday, which was one of the first decisions we made. It was a film made for ITV, a TV movie, and made by not a new director, Paul Greengrass, who had already made one or two feature films before and vowed not to do it again. It was quite clearly a film with a point of view, and all of a sudden this NGPB this non-government public body was making a film that was going to cause some ruckus.

When the UK Film Council was set up, it was decided to have separate funds for development (led from 2000-2007 by Jenny Borgars, then by Tanya Seghatchian) and two for production. This three-fund system Premiere (10m annually), New Cinema (5m) and Development (5m) was abandoned in 2009 with the creation of the unified Film Fund (15m).

Will Evans: I think there was a school of thought at the Film Council that it might not be a good idea to have one person in charge of such a large sum of money. If you find the right person to be in charge of a lot of money, then I think its fine. So, for example, Im a massive fan of [the BFIs] Ben Roberts. I think he walks on water. He showed its possible to have one person in charge of a lot of money if you get the right person.

Sally Caplan (head of UKFC Premiere Fund, 2005-2010): I think that it was a good thing to have both the New Cinema Fund, focusing on newer talent, and the Premiere Fund looking after ostensibly more commercial, bigger-budget projects. There was some fluidity between the two funds, which was good, and both funds were trying to promote gender equality and diversity and inclusion.

Paul Greengrasss directing career arguably faltered after his first two films until the New Cinema Fund backed Bloody Sunday from which there has been no looking back. Kevin Macdonalds career was [pushed forward] as a director off the back of the UKFCs support for Touching The Void. Lynne Ramsay was launched with Ratcatcher and Sarah Gavron with Brick Lane. I guess my departments biggest success was backing The Kings Speech when other funding bodies turned it down which extraordinarily was the first film that Iain Canning produced. Not a bad way to start.

Robert Jones: The flip side of that is youre getting hundreds and thousands of applications every year and you can only say yes to less than 1%. So youre doubtless going to piss a lot of people off Which I managed to do, Im not happy to say, but it was inevitable.

Jack Arbuthnott (UK Film Council Development Fund executive, 2006-2008): Every script that was sent to the Development Fund was sent out for external coverage, and someone would write this very stern report, and obviously most of the stuff youre getting is not deemed to be worth supporting.

A meeting was held where we looked at the report, and maybe at the script itself, and then a very offensive letter was sent to the applicant, explaining to them why their script wasnt commercial based on some choice extracts of the coverage.It seemed to me it was a system to generate needless contempt from the applicant. And so one of the things that Tanya introduced was a more evasive [approach] it just didnt piss people off in the same way.

One of the problems that the Development Fund had was it set itself up to be this arbiter of commercial viability. Ironically, it demonstrated absolutely no ability to do that over its lifetime. But even if it had, its just a very obnoxious role to be in.

The recoupment targets for the Film Councils two production funds quickly became a bone of contention with producers, whose scripts were being rejected on the basis that the completed films were not deemed likely to meet the targets. Producers also found the commercial terms offered by the UKFC to be ungenerous, and there was inevitable jealousy of well-paid fund heads such as Jones and Trijbits, who were both former producers.

Vince Holden: John [Woodward] initially suggested a 100% recoupment target. I said, If thats what you want to do, I can do it. But its not really going to stimulate anything. Its just going to replace banks with cheaper funding, which is not really what we should be doing. So we set a target 50% recoupment for the Premiere Fund, 25% recoupment for the New Cinema Fund and I basically policed it. It was my job to make sure that those guys hit their targets in a very soft kind of way.

That credit committee sat religiously, every Wednesday morning at 10am. We had a pile of thinned-down applications that we all wanted to do, and it was kind of like a greenlight process. And thats where the arguments came The arguments over Mike Leigh, I cant tell you. We backed him three times. My argument was, why when we add up all these territories that Mike Leigh films sell for, are we all of a sudden making a film for twice that amount? Its disproportionate. Mike Leigh should be making a film for a budget that the commercial market can actually stand. I mention Mike Leigh because I love him to bits.

In the end, across the Premiere Fund, New Cinema Fund and Tanyas Film Fund, we hit 40%, which Im happy with. Overall, 132m was spent and 40% came in. You can do the maths, thats a lot of money that came in and was recycled.

Rebecca OBrien (UK Film Council board member, 2006-2011; producer): What we fought for was a tiny share of any of the money that came back in if your film was successful, and that was the big battle that I was involved in: for producers to get a share of revenue so that they could support themselves, rather than always being dependent on beneficence from the Film Council.

There was also this feeling at the Film Council that producers were useless that they really werent very good at their job and that they all needed hands holding. So there was an awful lot of infrastructure at the Film Council, with a lot of employees.

For producers, there was a lot of mistrust of the Film Council and a lot of misunderstanding as to what on earth they were doing, and the feeling that they just didnt get what producers did. There was definitely the feeling that if you got one of those jobs, you didnt have to be a producer anymore. Especially when you have producers earning a tiny bit of development money trying to get projects off the ground.

The UKFCs position on both recoupment targets and sharing equity with producers did change over time.

Will Evans: PACT were repeatedly saying to the Film Council, We believe that the amount of the UK tax credit in each British producers film should be a recoupable sum for that producer on that film. In the end, the UK Film Council said, OK, we will support the notion of this producer equity entitlement equal to the amount of the tax credit, provided that all the other financiers public and commercial in the particular film are prepared to allow it. And in 2010, the UKFC was successful in persuading BBC Films and Film4 to both take the same position.

At the beginning, it was very difficult to get commercial companies to agree to it because they would say, Hang on a minute, you want to dilute my return, and the answers no. But as the years went on, and when we transferred over to the BFI, it became a more accepted position in the industry.

In the early days, the Film Council used to give back to the producer on each of their films 5% of the Film Councils revenue recoupment just a small notional sum. It wasnt able to give any more than that because, in effect, its state aid.

PACT said producers want more than 5%. So the Film Council then went to Brussels and asked if it was possible to increase the percentage, and approval was given to increase it to 25% of the Film Councils income until they were 50% recouped, and 50% of the Film Councils income until full recoupment. This gives a blended percentage of 37.5% of the BFIs recoupment income, and that still stands today. Its called the BFI Producer Corridor and it goes into a lockbox administered by the BFI for the benefit of the UK producer, director and writer, subject to certain restrictions.

In April 2011, the BFI took the same position that had previously been adopted by the Film Council: you can either have the Producer Equity Entitlement or you can have the BFI Producer Corridor, you cant have them both. BBC Films took the same view at the time regarding its own producer corridor. In the last seven years, of the three principal public funders, the BFI allows you to have both of these things but they go into a lockbox to be administered by the BFI.

In 2002, the UKFC recruited former Film4 deputy chief executive and head of distribution Pete Buckingham to head up a new distribution and exhibition department, which introduced innovations including the P&A Fund (to help distributors reach bigger audiences for specialised films) and the 12m digital screen network (which helped 240 cinemas digitise their screens, in return for a commitment to show a wider range of titles).

Carol Comley: If innovation is doing things differently, looking to the future, then Pete Buckingham was the person that best represents that side of the Film Councils way of thinking. The fund heads, for example Tanya, Paul and Robert, at different moments were all very strategic. They were strategic in terms of creative production, whereas Pete was the one alongside John who always took a 360-degree approach who considered both supply- and importantly demand-side challenges.

Pete Buckingham (head of distribution and exhibition, UK Film Council, 2002-2011): We wanted to get more and more people watching a wider range of films across the UK and enjoying them. And the question is, Well, what is it we want to do to try and achieve that?

We decided that we were not going to subsidise [distribution of] films that were core films to a core audience. We were looking for those kind of middle-ground films that had a chance of reaching out to wider audiences. The film needs to have a shot, in our opinion, at reaching 1m box office. Now, that is just unheard of; back then, in 2002, it was a stretch target.

So thats what we launched, not without some criticism, most notably from [Artificial Eye co-founder] Andi Engel. We were not going to give money to people who had pure arthouse films for pure arthouse release, that was not part of our equation.

To the UKFC, it didnt matter if the distributor was a Hollywood studio the investment decision was about the film, and whether matching funds could help it reach a wider audience.

Pete Buckingham: That was an ongoing problem. People were very upset about that. It was too easy to target and say, Well, 20th Century Fox have got money for that. And yet they were perfect partners to achieve our strategic objective, which was to get more and more people used to watching a wider range of films across the UK.

The majority of people we worked with were independents because they had these movies, but we would inevitably tend to work with the people with bigger pockets [such as Lionsgate, Pathe, Studiocanal and Momentum] because they would have the wherewithal and the ambition. They were more able to take the risk, and were prepared to have a go.

Vince Holden: The digital screen network that Pete did I mean, just a brilliant idea. That was commercial meeting government meeting brains, and pushed us on disproportionately in the digital exhibition world.

Pete Buckingham: We thought it would be an amazing thing to have, lets say, 200-odd cinemas across the UK of all types, which will now have a programming commitment to for want of a better word specialised films. That worked. If you look back at those numbers, the numbers are very big. Subtitled films and difficult, specialised films got a wider range and people went to them.

All we were trying to do was give confidence: that actually when the heroin is withdrawn, you dont revert back to [how it was before]. The new normal could appear and people would operate in that normal. The problem is I dont think that happened. There are market forces, changes of business structures and philosophies.

I feel sad because for about five or six years, we had all the chains really engaged in successfully building people to watch these films in places theyd never really get a chance to see them. It just slipped back. There was a short period of time when things did look like they might be changing. But then it just fell back to worse than it ever was.

Following recommendations contained in the Film in England report, nine regional screen agencies for England were created from 2001 onwards. In summer 2010, the new Coalition Government announced the abolition of the regional development agencies, which had provided substantial funding to the regional screen agencies. With no replacement funding available, Creative England stepped into the vacuum with some support from the BFI. Meanwhile, in 2004, the UKFC invited bids for what became known as development franchises, or super slates, which required successful applicants to create strategic partnerships. We want distribution and sales to be involved in development from the get-go, said Jenny Borgars at the time of announcement.

Rebecca OBrien: That was a good thing about the Film Council: there was definitely a real effort to push film industrially all over the country. The problem was the influence was always top down. They were prescribing what people should do in the industry, rather than listening and watching what people wanted to do in their own areas. It was very prescriptive, and it was very top down.

Paul Trijbits: One of the challenges you face is that as time goes on, different priorities get set: the endless shifting from national to regional and back, and where should the decision-making lie, and how to push it out, and then end up with all those regional screen organisations, which were costing too much money. And then it was seen that that wasnt the right way. In the end, it doesnt feel like youve made a lot of progress.

Jack Arbuthnott: The super slates were a big deal, very ill-fated, and also probably quite exposing. It was stated to say: companies will perform better if theyre forced to work together as bigger entities, therefore to get this money you have to pitch as a consortium. But the consortiums didnt seem to particularly work. Its a difficult thing to do right because most of the things youre going to support are not going to work, so how one is covered for that is really important.

Paul Trijbits: I think organisations that do well seem to have a six-, seven-year period when things go very well. And then I think you end up with something that already looks a bit like decline, often not recognised by the people in it, and that you are probably not able to innovate.

I can certainly tell you that when I left after six years, I had lost some of the more risk-taking boldness that the funds certainly displayed at the beginning. That is an absolutely normal human trait. Because if you know something is good but painful, the second or third time, you might remember and say, Lets not do that.

One of the key aims of the original Film Council was to create a self-sustaining UK film industry. Thanks to the 2007 UK Film Tax Relief, which improved on earlier tax schemes that were open to abuse, a transformation was finally achieved, but indigenous independent production remains selectively supported by public investment, notably the BFI Film Fund, as well as by the tax credit.

Tim Bevan (chair of UK Film Council, 2009-2011): Pre-tax credit, there were all these Mickey Mouse tax schemes and shyster financiers and all the rest of it. And the tax credit and the cleanliness of the tax credit has been way and beyond the backbone of whats gone on in the last decade or so in film in Britain, because its a fantastic scheme that is transparent, is rock solid, everybody can rely on it, and its attracted tens of billions of inward investment because of it.

Robert Jones: It was very important to try and help the UK film businesses become self-sustaining, and that was something that the Film Council failed to do. It was something that we talked about endlessly and tried to think of ways, but it didnt have enough influence and power over the industry as a whole, to change the ecology of the industry in terms of how independent films are financed.

We always held up Jeremy Thomas as the example of a producer who owns a library of his own projects, so has a business that has an asset value and a turnover, whether or not he makes a film every year. Unfortunately, those examples are still very few and far between. Most companies cant do that, and even more so now in the days of Netflix and Apple. Its another way of financing but its essentially working for a studio. You dont own anything.

Jack Arbuthnott: The Film Council had clearer aims [than the BFI does], and aims that were clearer to evaluate. It was very focused on building a sustainable film industry but the trends that determine these things were not within the Film Councils power to alter. So you could very easily say, the Film Council is clearly failing because its not contributing to building a sustainable film industry. The decision to nix it, Im sure, came from how exposed it was.

Vince Holden: On my leaving day, [a colleague] came up to me, and we had had lots of lively discussions over the years about whether government funding or charitable funding should be going into the film industry, and how to make the UK film industry sustainable. She said, So now youre leaving and you dont have to worry about it anymore, how much would it take to make the UK film industry sustainable?

I said, Youre not going to like the answer. She said, Its hundreds of millions, isnt it? And I said, No, its nothing. You take away the subsidy, you wait three or four years. And when theres only three or four producers left, and three or four distributors left, that is sustainable.

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10 years on: The UK Film Council's achievements, missteps and enduring impact - Screen International