Publishing a report about access to historic film, a UK Parliamentary committee says the stewardship of the nation's film heritage by the British Film Institute's National Film and Television Archive has led to "an unacceptable state of affairs."

The Public Accounts Committee comments: "Film in the Archive is decomposing, particularly nitrate film kept by the BFI in old vaults. Film duplicated onto safety stock for safekeeping is now proving more unstable than the original nitrate film. And large quantities of film in the archive which have not been examined and catalogued are not yet accessible to the public, suggesting that the BFI has been unable to keep up with the volume of work." Committee Chairman MP Edward Leigh said the BFI "does not know how much of the safety film might be decomposing or (is) at risk of deterioration".

He called on the UK Film Council, which controls BFI funding, to take "a much tighter grip" over the monies it provides, which amounted to £14.5m ($21m) during the 2001/2 financial year, to ensure that the film in its custody "does not rot away."

The committee recommends: "To ensure that the nation's film heritage is managed effectively, a fundamental review of the BFI will need to determine clear objectives and priorities for the Archive which are capable of being realised within the resources that are likely to be available."

Dec 7th 2003