Top film festival could be axed over £6,500 ratings fee for councils

A SOUTH London film festival is battling to survive after two borough councils demanded to watch and rate every film before they are screened, at significant cost to the organisers.

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The Crystal Palace International Film Festival (CPIFF) has been running for 16 years and is attended by stars such as musician Paul Weller and comedian Johnny Vegas.

It is currently rated fifth in the world on film festival website FilmFreeway’s top 100 best reviewed film festivals and is also the second best reviewed festival in the UK behind Nottingham’s Beeston Film Festival.

Dubbed ‘the world’s coolest film festival, the annual celebration of independent cinema takes place in March and hosts several screenings of short films that cover a range of genres, from documentaries and animation to horror and comedy, at Everyman Crystal Palace in Bromley and West Norwood Picturehouse in Lambeth.

Founder Neill Roy has now launched a petition to save the festival after claiming the licensing departments of Lambeth and Bromley councils have demanded to watch and rate every single film before they are screened at the festival.

Mr Roy said the councils would charge him to do so at £25 a film and £1.50 per minute.

There were 132 films in this year's festival which would have equated to a charge of more than £6,500, a cost that Mr Roy says would sink CPIFF.

He has been critical of these new demands, calling the councils “shortsighted” and “pathetic” and likening their stance to that of a “nanny state”.

He said: “They're not looking at any kind of a bigger picture and what the festival does for the area. Filmmakers fly in from all across the world to spend their money in these boroughs.