Speeches by Huq.

“I know the soundtrack but I have never seen the film—”

“Yes, the iPlayer and 4oD, where you can watch a lot of historical Channel 4 and BBC things for free. Would you ever consider such a thing?”

“On the archive that you mentioned, we had a lovely trip there recently, but a third of the stuff in there is not viewable by members of the public either. We know that it is very slow and laborious to digitise it, but I have just been googling a few things while I am here and they seem to be blocked, or you have to buy…”

“I have just googled two things: “Dance Craze”, which is a 2 Tone 1980s thing—you have to buy a subscription to see that—and then also “I’m British But…”, which was the first thing Gurinder Chadha did. She came and spoke to our Committee last year. I remember seeing it at a Southbank screening. It is blocked; it says, “…”

“I am actually going to see a Doctor Who on Saturday at Southbank, “Spearhead from Space”. Ealing is all over that episode—the first one in colour, I think. I have done a voiceover on a DVD version that is coming out, so they invited me. However, looking at your programme, the majority of the screenings at Southbank are…”

“I mentioned that “I’m British But…”—the first thing Gurinder Chadha did—says, “Currently unavailable”.”

“I remember that in the ’90s—I am that old—I went to a screening at the Southbank. It was a discussion—there were different ethnic minority filmmakers describing how they got in. That came through one of those very short film schemes, and we have heard evidence that those micro-budget schemes have disappeared. It was a …”

“Twenty-nine minutes, it says here.”

“They have vanished.”

“Ben, I saw you quoted in a couple of Guardian things—they weren’t great stories, I have to say. One was three months ago—“BFI apologises to film-maker over racial discrimination complaint”. The other is from the year before, “BFI accused of taking limited steps to address systemic racism”. These were both in The Guardi…”

“I think the accusation is that a lot of money is spent on anti-racism training, whereas you could have a ringfenced budget for these sorts of schemes. We had Myriam Raja from “Top Boy”, which I think started on Channel 4 and then went to Netflix, like “Black Mirror”—that I have some relationship with. She graduated fro…”

“Do you think that the UK has the right balance between independently owned studios and those that are US-owned or leased? We were at Warner Bros. the other day—the Harry Potter one. It was all very nice, but it is headquartered in California.”

“How much additional studio space would you like to see in the next five to 10 years?”

“It does feel as if everyone is in expansion mode. I think there is a big thing coming in Barking. They are expanding where we were last week. I think at Ealing Studios—with the longest continuous filmmaking—the site dates from 1902, and it has been making talkies since 1931.”

“On our trip last week, we found out something that seems a bit sad. There are other things on the site of Ealing Studios. There is a make-up school, the MetFilm school—lots of other stuff going on and they all feed into one another. I know that the Tour de France does not sound like high-end TV, but it is something goi…”

“Leavesden is a big ecosystem, so they can do it all in-house when that goes. I want to make a little plea. Chris, I know you said that it feels in the Rhondda that everything is in London or the south-east or, at best, Cardiff. Outer London is not the same as the streets paved with gold in central London. As a constitu…”

“The previous Government did that, not us.”

“Are the Government confident that the hoped-for increase in independent film production will be catered for by our existing infrastructure, or will you incentivise new studios? It feels as it everything is expanding. Is it a case of build it and they will come, or are we going to reach a saturation point?”

“The company that went under said it was more due to the American strike than to a particular contract, but contract changes like that do not help small companies and few suppliers.”

“Brilliant, thanks—so no overlooking outer London from now on, I hope. I can tell you that for “Barbie”, the Dua Lipa pop video scene was filmed in North Acton.”