“Making Hugh Grant more rich and miserable” has been the main impact of Richard Curtis’s movies up till now, the director joked today, but the Love Actually auteur has a plan to “usher in a new era of efficacy and legacy in our industry.”
During an impassioned Richard Attenborough Memorial Address at the British Screen Forum (BSF), Curtis called for the introduction of specialist impact producers as he questioned whether TV and movies are “missing a big trick” and had done enough over the decades to institute real change.
“You talk about a direct impact in the real world and half the people I know say that Ken Loach’s Cathy Come Home had an impact on homelessness but that was 60 years ago,” said Curtis.
Curtis said this could be resolved by the introduction of dedicated impact producers on each big production, who would seek opportunites to have a real-world impact via partnerships and education. The director, who has long argued for more sustainable filmmaking and joked that he “gets an email a week from people saying they have a great idea for a climate romcom,” called on those in charge to “put aside a small proportion of your budget to pay for an impact producer or integrate an impact producer into your plans.” “A small budget line can have a real world effect, actual achievements rather than just the vague hope of change.”
He pointed to recent examples such as Black Panther raising millions of dollars for charity, Spotlight partnering with survivor networks for people who had been abused in the Catholic church and Steve McQueen’s Small Axe creating history lessons for the BBC education site.
He said this should be far more commonplace today but there is hope in that there have been major “practical changes” of late such as improved diversity in front of and beind the camera, intimacy co-ordinators and sustainability officers.
“Wouldn’t it break your heart to work so hard on an issue and then feel like a runner in a marathon who forgets to enter the stadium and do the final lap?,” he questioned. “If you’ve dedicated many years of your life to making a show about a passionate issue, isn’t it the most terrible shame that you could have saved lives in the real world but for lack of a dedicated person in your team you let the pain go on?”
Curtis demonstrated extreme self-awareness when he joked that he has spent a career directing “‘hot cross bun titles’, whose biggest real-world effect has been making Hugh Grant more rich and miserable.”
He was closing the BSF after talks from Prime Video Europe boss Andrew Bennett and Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger.