Michael Winner backs UK Film Council axe

Michael Winner has backed the government's decision to shut down the UK Film Council.

The Death Wish director told the Daily Mail that he was in favour of Culture, Media and Sport secretary Jeremy Hunt's restructuring of film financing in the UK. Winner also criticised Film Council supporters Liam Neeson and Clint Eastwood for "talking rubbish" about the funding body.

"They want to save the day and look like wonderful human beings, but they’re talking a load of rubbish," he said.

Of Eastwood's letter to Chancellor George Osborne asking to save the UKFC, Winner added: “He’s never had to go to the Film Council. He’s got money himself, and that’s the sort of people we need, not the Film Council.”

Winner stated that he found it "very difficult to justify giving money to movie companies when we need hospitals and doctors and houses".

"[The council] gives a lot of work to people who are out of work and who possibly deserve to be out of work, quite honestly,” he commented.

Former EastEnders actor-turned-producer Billy Murray has also recently come out to defend the government's plans, saying: "I have never formally applied to the Film Council for funding because their agenda has not been to encourage commercial, international filmmaking, but rather to foster self-serving movies made by and aimed at the 'chosen few'.

"I applaud Jeremy Hunt's thinking on this matter and welcome further initiatives to encourage our much-loved, but much-abused, industry to move forward to the success and acclaim it has the potential to achieve."

Filmmaker Noel Clarke and director David Morrissey recently told Digital Spy that they were angry at the loss of the UKFC.