Independent producer awarded NESTA fellowship

Independent producer Keith Griffiths has received a £67,778 fellowship from NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) – the organisation that backs UK innovators.
Griffiths, from Deal in Kent, wants to enable new and progressive feature length films and contextual work to be commissioned and produced specifically for the rapidly expanding DVD market. He said: “Unless new formats are imagined and realised to passionately embrace new technologies, the future for a truly vibrant progressive international cinema looks increasingly bleak.”
He has been producing films and television programmes for more than two decades and, in 1994, was honoured with the Observer-Prudential/Arts Council Award for Film. He is acknowledged as being amongst the most creative producers working in Britain today and is a respected authority on art cinema and the avant-garde.
The Fellowship from NESTA will enable Griffiths to spend three years researching, developing and communicating a new film production model that aims to increase production capacity for filmmakers and accessibility for audiences in niche markets in the UK and abroad.
Griffiths said: “To develop my personal vision and imagine some alternatives for a floundering low-budget filmmaking sector is more important to me at this point in my career trajectory than just producing more work within the present British environment.”
(GB)