Letter: The films we don't get to see

THE continuing growth in cinema attendances is to be celebrated ("Record high for cinema", 3 May), but is the 39 million audience provided with more choice? Hardly. Film magazine (September 1996) pointed out that Glasgow had three cinemas in a three-mile radius offering a total of 23 screens, yet 11 of those were occupied by just three films. How many of the 128 British films produced in 1996 did the multiscreens show? How many foreign-language films? And for how long? Apart from the handful of Regional Film Theatres, the only outlet for such films are the 250 film societies in the UK. From Shetland to Jersey these deliver an annual audience of well over 1 million.

If film is about culture as well as commerce then it will be the subsidised and voluntary sector that will continue to take risks. And (at last) it seems that the BFI and the new government are beginning to recognise this.