What makes a British Film

Lucy Brownnutt

1. Made with British money and resources.

2. Films co-funded with money from Britain. Majority of finance, cultural content & personnel are British.

3. Films with mostly foreign money investment and a small British input, either financially or creatively.

4. Films made in the UK with (usually) British cultural content.

5. American films with some British involvement

5 Categories

Social Realism

Social realism is the most typically British of all film genres.Social realism is an international movement that refers to the work of painters, printmakers, photographers and filmmakers who draw attention to the everyday conditions of the working classes and the poor, and who are critical of the social structures that maintain these conditions. Nation to nation, it almost always utilizes a form of descriptive or critical realism.Films that show our society in a ‘real’ way.

An example of a British film that shows social realism is Billy Elliot.

This film shows social realism because it shows a boy who comes from a ‘poor background’ and is living in a difficult time as he was living during the coal miners strike 1984-1985.

His mother is dead and this shows realism as it shows that we lose people and still have to carry on without them like Billy is doing.

Stereotypically Billy’s dad wants him to learn boxing but instead Billy falls in love with the idea of ballet dancing.

Production also makes a British film.

Companies such as Working Titles and Warp Pictures are very British production companies and have made many British films using British actors and also in a British setting.