BFI will no longer fund movies featuring villains with facial scarring

The British Film Institute has said that it no longer intends to fund movies which feature villains with facial scarring, in the hope of battling the stigma around disfigurement.

The move is to help back a campaign called #IamNotYourVillain, which has been launched by the charity Changing Faces, which supports people with a visible difference to the face, hands or body.

“Film is a catalyst for change and that is why we are committing to not having negative representations depicted through scars or facial difference in the films we fund,” said BFI deputy CEO Ben Roberts.

“This campaign speaks directly to the criteria in the BFI diversity standards, which call for meaningful representations on screen.

“We fully support Changing Faces’s #IAmNotYourVillain campaign, and urge the rest of the film industry to do the same.”

To firm up its commitment to the campaign, the BFI has also announced funding for new film Dirty God, a drama in which a woman has to rebuild her life after an acid attack.

It will star Vicky Knight, an actress who is a burns survivor.

“The film industry has such power to influence the public with its representation of diversity, and yet films use scars and looking different as a shorthand for villainy far too often,” said Changing Faces’ chief executive Becky Hewitt.

“It’s particularly worrying to see that children don’t tend to make this association until they are exposed to films that influence their attitudes towards disfigurement in a profoundly negative way.”

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