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Protests against the government’s decision, announced on 26^th July 2010, to abolish the UK Film Council continued to gather pace following the publication of a letter in the Daily Telegraph in which 75 actors claimed that the abolition would damage the backbone of the British film industry.

Further objection to the decision came from an unlikely source on 9^th August when it was announced that legendary American actor and director Clint Eastwood had written to MP George Osbourne asking him to reconsider his decision.   Writing on behalf of his production company which had just completed filming of the forthcoming film Hereafter in London, Eastwood said, ‘I cannot stress how important the Film Council is to me - I have been following the news of its proposed abolition with great interest… The prospect of losing a valuable resource such as the UKFC is of great concern to us… The UKFC was instrumental in providing us the crucial, detailed information we needed to make our decision to ultimately shoot in the UK.   Without such assistance during the early stages of pre-production, the likelihood of a London shoot would have been greatly diminished.   Locales with active, knowledgeable film commissions are far more appealing to us as producers.   We respectfully request careful consideration of our concerns in deciding the fate of the UKFC’

Eastwood warned that the closure of the Council could result in some films that would previously have been made in Britain now being filmed elsewhere.

The day before, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt had defended the decision in The Guardian newspaper, where he wrote that, ‘It is simply not acceptable in these times to fund an organisation like the UK Film Council, where no fewer than eight of the top executives are paid more than £100,000.   Stopping money being spent on a film quango is not the same as stopping money being spent on film.’

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