4). The Exclusion Act: British East and South East Asians in British Cinema

This research, by Chi Thai and Delphine Lievens, examines British films that were theatrically released from 1st January 2011 to 31st December 2020, and studies how many of these films featured British East and/or South East Asians (BESEA)  in a directing, or lead acting role. 

The term BESEA refers to British people of the following descent and heritage: Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, China, East Timor, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia, North Korea, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and their diasporas. This study shows a high level of absence of BESEA talent in the UK film industry. The data is drawn from Comscore. 

Executive Summary

Our data is generated from a study of 1077 films that were theatrically released in the last decade. This research shows that:

• In the past ten years, 9 British films have been released theatrically by BESEA directors, which equates to 0.8% of all releases.

• Of these 9 films, 1 film is a feature documentary.

• The majority of these films are defined as low budget.

• These 9 films account for 0.018% of box office for all British films released during the 10 year period. 

• 2 films were released in over 25 screens at the widest point of release. 

• The ethnic backgrounds of the directors were predominantly Japanese, Cambodian and Chinese.

• 3 films speak to the culturally specific lived BESEA experience.

• BESEA acting talent in a main role featured in only 17 theatrical releases in the 10 year period, which equates to 1.7% of all British film releases.

• BESEA actors typically are not cast in a leading role in these films.

• The ethnic backgrounds of the actors were predominantly Japanese and Chinese.

These findings suggest that the BESEA community is marginalized in the film industry, resulting in severe under representation both on and off-screen.

Introduction

Ethnic minorities are often addressed under one banner, and are often referred to as “BAME”. A recent anti-racist movement which is growing in momentum, aims to address systemic racism and to understand diversity by dismantling the term “BAME'' and the limitations of what it represents. 

Understanding diversity requires acknowledgement of all the marginalized communities of colour; and how these different communities are confronted by different challenges. Two recent reports have been illuminating in their examination of representation, ethnicity, and the British television industry:

• Dr. Jami Rogers’s Diversity in Broadcast Peak Scripted Television, which exposed the deep exclusion of the BESEA community in the television industry. A significant observation in this study indicated 0% on-screen BESEA representation on major flagship continuing drama series for 2018. 

• The Creative Diversity Network’s “Race and Ethnic Diversity: A Deep Dive into Diamond Data” studied the ethnic breakdown of senior production staff (e.g. commissioning editors, directors, producers, writers) and observed “East Asian” inclusion at 0.7%. 

This report, “The Exclusion Act” has focused specifically on the BESEA community in the British film industry. In this regard, discussing the systemic racism faced by the BESEA community  it is first worth reminding ourselves of Orientalism (Said, 1978) and the exclusionary history that this community has faced, and to understand East and South East Asian (ESEA) specific systemic challenges, in which the BESEA group has been subjected to: the “Model Minority Myth”, “Yellow Peril” “Yellow Fever”; and lastly, in particular to the entertainment industry, the on-going practices of “Yellow Face” and “Whitewashing.” Within this historical context, this report demonstrates deep rooted exclusionary practices originating from colonial systems of power that continue to control who can and cannot shape the UK’s  society and culture today.

An Exclusionary History

Orientalism is the positioning of the West as the norm, sophisticated and superior in contrast to the exoticized, undeveloped and backwards East. Orientalism has driven the exclusionary history of the ESEA community. Two accounts of historical exclusion are worth flagging and although by no means comprehensive, they demonstrate the scope and extent of ESEA discrimination:

• The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 in the US, (prohibiting all immigration of Chinese labourers) which was not abolished until 1965.

• The forced repatriation from the UK of thousands of Chinese sailors in the 1940s.

Although these accounts refer to Chinese people, the exclusion extended to those that looked and sounded Chinese goes hand in hand with the common slight thrown at the ESEA community “you all look alike.” It is this very sentiment that has informed the understanding of East and South East Asia and its diasporas as being made up of a singular monolithic group of people. This is reflected in all forms of bureaucracy, from film industry monitoring forms to the National Census, where BESEA people are given the choice of “Chinese” or “Other”, thus exposing a reductive white gaze (Consequently, it is difficult to accurately calculate the percentage of BESEA in the UK population - for the purposes of this report is approximated as 2.2%. The combined Asian and BESEA community together make 7.5% of the UK population - the largest ethnic group after White British, followed by Black British at 3.3%. )

Orientalism is a form of “Yellow Peril,” a persistent and harmful form of stereotyping and xenophobia that aims to ensure that BESEA are perceived as threats and as perpetual foreigners. In entertainment, the majority of the representation of BESEA has been through the eyes of the status quo and consequently the portrayal of these characters are drawn by the hand of the establishment and seen through the prism of the Yellow Peril. This sustains common depictions which are often dehumanizing: inscrutable or emotionless Asians, obedient lotus flowers, servile prostitutes, emasculated men, violent thugs, perpetual foreigners, and more. 

This typecasting can become particularly insidious within the UK and US film industries where the stereotype is pervasive and  damaging, particularly in the casting process as reported in Nancy Yuen’s Reel Inequality: 

“I work with a lot of different people, and Asians are a challenge to cast because most casting directors feel as though they’re not very expressive,” one other casting director told Yuen. “They’re very shut down in their emotions … If it’s a look thing for business where they come in they’re at a computer or if they’re like a scientist or something like that, they’ll do that; but if it’s something where they really have to act and get some kind of performance out of, it’s a challenge.”

Furthermore, the sexual fetishizing of ESEA women, which is also known as “Yellow Fever,” not only prevails on our cinema and television screens, but also in everyday life, and represents a major contributory factor to the violence and abuse experienced by ESEA women in western society. This form of racism perpetuates a type of misogyny that dehumanizes ESEA women, and in which violence against them is normalized and socially acceptable. A study from the National Network to End Domestic Violence reports: “The everyday racism and sexism against Asian women yield deadly results, (with) 41 to 61 percent of Asian women report experiencing physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner during their lifetime. This is significantly higher than any other ethnic group.”

An example of this is seen in the British writer-director Alex Garland’s lauded directorial debut, Ex Machina (2015) which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and for a BAFTA for Best Film. Kyoko, a secondary character played by British Japanese actor, Sonoyo Mizuno is an android who takes the form of a mute Japanese woman, obedient, emotionless and submissive, who serves her master and absorbs his mistreatment against her without complaint. When the film’s protagonist, Caleb, meets Kyoko for the first time (because of the prevailing stereotype which is taken at face value as truth) he does not question whether or not Kyoko is human, until she later reveals she is an android. 

Since the 1960s, East and South East Asians in the West have been framed as a model minority. This is a myth that sets up an illusion that all Asian Americans and BESEA people are smart, wealthy, hard working, obedient and self-reliant.  Most dangerously, the myth pits marginalized communities against each other - “the good immigrant” versus the “bad immigrant,” whilst upholding white supremacy. The myth also perpetuates an erasure of BESEA racial identity and reality. Consequently, the BESEA community is one of the least visible minorities within the BAME spectrum. In the Race and Ethnic Diversity: Diamond Data Report 2020 BESEA inclusion in the television industry consistently ranked lowest in comparison with Black and South Asian groups.

Even more being the “good immigrant” has afforded the community no protection or privilege when confronted with COVID - the community has gone from invisibility to hypervisibility during the pandemic, shattering the myth and showing it to be a thin mask of tolerance revealing the racism that lurks underneath.

Whitewashing is the casting of white actors in non-white roles. Yellow Face is the application of make-up to imitate the appearance of an East or South East Asian. Notable entries are Fu Manchu, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Charlie Chan. In the US, these practices were underpinned by legislation - the Motion Picture Production Code, widely known also as the Hays Code, was created in 1934 to prohibit “immoral” films, for instance, the depiction of miscegenation (e.g. interracial relationships). It would take until 1967 for anti-miscegenation to be deemed unconstitutional. The Hays Code also informed that whitewashing and yellowface, where necessary, was a legal requirement. Although the Code is now obsolete the practices of yellow face and whitewashing are not, and recent examples include:

• Jim Sturgess, Hugo Weaving, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant and James D’Arcy as Neo-Koreans in Cloud Atlas (2012).

• Emma Stone as Hawaiian Asian Allison Ng in Aloha (2015).

• Tilda Swinton as the Tibetan Ancient One in Doctor Strange (2016).

• Natt Wolf as Light Turner in Death Note (2017).

• Scarlett Johansson as Japanese cyborg Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in Shell (2017).

• French Algerian Tahar Rahim was cast in the titular role of a Vietnamese Indian in The Serpent (2021) a prime time BBC drama .

The practice of Yellow Face and Whitewashing takes away precious opportunities from an already marginalized community that has so few opportunities in the first place and contributes to the under-nourishment of the BESEA talent pool. In this world, more white women have won an Academy Award for Best Actress for playing an East or South East Asian than actual East or South East Asian actresses themselves.

Yellow Face and Whitewashing perpetuate the principle that white actors can play anybody and everybody. Whereas people of colour, cannot be white neither can they be themselves. From a wider societal perspective, it sets white as the norm and the default, the standard that non-white people should aspire to but which ultimately, they can never achieve.

With limited opportunities for BESEA acting talent to develop their employability (experience, skills and profile), further forces come into play that can potentially further marginalize a vulnerable community. An example of this is how diasporic ESEA might be considered less authentic than “motherland” ESEA: 

“There is a huge racial authenticity bias that happens to all British East Asian actors I think in that being British East Asian suddenly seems to diminish your "authenticity" to be "Chinese". Under this bias, some casting directors would prefer to cast someone from China/East Asia for a Chinese/East Asian role in a western production, a practice that is not much carried out for roles of other ethnic origins. An example is the Disney remake of Mulan casting Chinese actress Liu Yifei. It denies the opportunity for East Asian diasporas in the West to create their own representation in the media that they themselves consume.’ (Jennifer Mak, 2019).

The BESEA community is confronted with systems of exclusion which have long histories and remain real obstacles to the community today. But there is another devastating wound to inflict, in the wake of these external social and structural forces, the BESEA community must also contend with internalized racism, which can embed complex and deep-rooted feelings of doubt, disrespect and hatred for one’s heritage. 

Methodology

This report examined all of the British feature films  that were released in the UK between 1st January, 2011, to 31, December, 2020. Films were defined as British if they indicated that that the UK was the primary territory of origin. All non British films were excluded from this study. Data was compiled from Comscore and tabulated to indicate data across the following headings:

• Director/s

• Number of screens in which the film was exhibited across  at the point of widest release

• Cumulative UK box office gross

• Main Cast

• Genre 

• Release Date 

To investigate and confirm the ethnic heritage of directors and actors, names were cross checked against industry databases including IMDB or directly with directors, actors or their agents / representatives. The analysis was also underpinned by the professional knowledge of the authors of this report - in that regard there are limitations to the precision that is ascertainable (especially in the event of people of colour who pass for white). Given that white is considered to be the default it is often not written explicitly, whereas it often is for people of colour. In addition, sometimes a person’s ethnicity was reported under a more generic term, as opposed to being reported more specifically. 

Further research was undertaken to also calculate and source:

• Screen averages

• Production budgets 

• BFI production funding awards

Budgets were confirmed by producers or funders in order to ensure reliable data. Where this was not possible, estimates were provided by experienced line producers. The data was analyzed comparatively across industry averages to illuminate patterns and trends. 

The study also interviewed Robert Mitchell, a leading Theatrical Insight analyst in the UK. 

BESEA off-screen representation

Of the 1,077 British films that have been theatrically released in the UK in the last decade, 9 were helmed by BESEA directors.  Of the 9 films, 8 are narrative features: Black Pond (2011), Lilting (2014), The Darkest Universe (2016), Gangsters, Gamblers and Geezers (2016), The Receptionist (2018), Redcon-1 (2018), London Unplugged (2019) and Monsoon (2020).  

Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle (2017) is a feature documentary and is the only theatrically released feature documentary with a BESEA director at the helm in the last 10 years, from a total of 249 British documentaries that were released in that period.

Table showing all BESEA directed films December 2020 -January 2021

General observations

These nine films equate to 0.8% of all theatrical releases in the UK. 

Four of the nine films are directed by the same directors, Will Sharpe and Hong Khaou.

Of the 9 films, 3 have directors who identify as female: Jenny Lu (The Receptionist) and Kaki Wong and Qi Zhang (directors on the London Unplugged anthology).

The ethnic backgrounds of the directors are: Chinese, Hong Kong, Filipino, Cambodian, mixed White British and Japanese; and mixed White British and Chinese. There are no directors of the following descents and heritages: Brunei, Burma, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia, North Korea, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and their diasporas. 

The graphs shown below highlight the availability of options for BESEA talent (both in terms of volume of releases and box office grosses) in the past 10 years, in comparison to all of the British films released.

Budgets, distribution and box office revenue

The average number of cinemas in which UK films are released is 103. This reduces to 23 cinemas when considering films that grossed under £150k, as per the 9 films listed above. The screen average for all of the 1077 British films analysed sits at a median of £1,842, an amount which 6 of the films listed above exceeded. Despite the restrictions of the films’ release size, some of these films have overperformed at the box office in terms of their screen average - these are Black Pond, Lilting, Dispossession, and London Unplugged. 

The median production budget for UK domestic films has risen in the past 10 years, starting at £180k in 2011 and gradually rising to reach £750k in 2019. 6% of the British films made in 2019 had a budget that was in excess of £5m, and a further 45% had a budget of between £500k and £5m. The remaining 48% had budgets that were lower than £500k. Even with the small sample size, it is clear that BESEA directed films occupy the lowest end of the budget scale in the film market, with 7 of the 9 films having a budget that was considerably less than £500k. 

Of the 9 films, 2 received BFI funding - Lilting and Monsoon - both directed by Hong Khaou. Of the full list of 1,077 British films, 137 received BFI production funding, equivalent to 13%. 

The data suggests that BESEA directed films receive smaller releases. Of the 9 films released by BESEA directors, only 2 were released in over 25 screens: Lilting and The Receptionist. Lilting is also the only film that grossed over £100k at the box office, with a lifetime total of £133k. These 9 films account for just £262k of the UK box office gross, or 0.018% of box office for all of the films released in the UK during the 10 year period. 

The most significant finding from this data set is that with the exception of two films all BESEA directed films are low budget ones. Low budget films are under-resourced in so many ways - from a comprehensive development process, funding, cast, crew, production value and more. It is accepted that low budget films will struggle in the marketplace, often attracting a lower P&A spend. Robert Mitchell confirmed this, asserting that for low budget films: 

“There is a clear correlation between production budget and P&A budget, this is unsurprising given the financials at stake and the importance therefore of reaching the biggest audience available. A low budget film will not need as large an audience to make it profitable, although it will likely have to work harder to reach them.”

Often low budget films serve as debut films and as stepping stones to higher budgets and bigger production ambitions. When questioned as to why there are so many low budget films in the marketplace, Robert Mitchell replies that: “Low budget films reduce barriers to entry for unproven filmmakers. They can be both a proving ground for ambitious filmmakers and a safe-zone for filmmakers with stories to tell that may not be deemed particularly commercial.” 

The highest budget is Monsoon at £1.7m. There is not a wide mix of films - low, medium and high, or a mix of directing talent that goes from the very experienced to the emerging directors, and so forth.  This is an unhealthy snapshot of an industry. A healthy market will house a variety of budgets, genres, experience and talent. Robert Mitchell emphasized the importance of this, acknowledging that: “No two people like all the same things and catering only for one group only ensures disaster, because the moment that group doesn't come out the industry is lost.”

Only 3 of these BESEA directors have gone on to make another feature at the time of writing. This data shows that BESEA directors work with the lower end of production budgets and receive lower distribution support. The combination of the elements creates difficult conditions for BESEA directors to thrive in and sustain careers. Robert Mitchell explained:  “A low budget feature can be seen as a calling card, a proof of talent. Getting to make a second film if your first film is both unprofitable and unloved is very difficult.”  

As these films are perceived to underperform at the box office, film financiers and distributors will naturally perceive BESEA directed films to be risky, niche and uncommercial.  This contributes to an ecosystem in which BESEA helmed films are not supported by the industry, maintaining BESEA at the margins of an industry. This was further clarified by Robert Mitchell:

“There can be a justifiable perception that any culturally-specific features are ‘risky’ because they rely on a specific niche audience to come out. Bigger distributors will tend to have a more ‘one size fits all’ approach to marketing, and distribution which may lack the nuance necessary to properly exploit genuine opportunities among minority groups. There is a bias among largely white, heterosexual ‘gatekeepers’ that stories from minority filmmakers are less likely to break out and be seen as universal.”

Of the nine films from the last decade, three of these films - Lilting, Monsoon and The Receptionist - can be broadly themed as being culturally specific to the ‘lived’ BESEA experience. Simply, BESEA audiences are starved of films that reflect them and their experiences. With so few BESEA directors able to get their films made and widely seen, the greater diaspora do not see themselves being reflected in the cinema. 

BESEA On-Screen Representation

Of 1,077 films BESEA actors feature in 17 of the theatrical releases during this 10-year period. This equates to 1.7% of all British film releases. These are: Black Pond, Johnny English Reborn, Submarine, All Stars, Lilting, Before I Go to Sleep, The Double, Honey Trap, X+Y, The Darkest Universe, Gangsters Gamblers and Geezers, Stratton, The Receptionist, Anna & the Apocalypse, Mary Queen of Scots, Monsoon, The Personal History of David Copperfield. 

Six of those films are helmed by BESEA directors who feature in the previous section - they are: Black Pond, Lilting, The Darkest Universe, Gangsters, Gamblers and Geezers, Monsoon and The Receptionist. 

Budgets

Films featuring BESEA actors in their cast demonstrate a wider variety of production budgets. At the lower end, Black Pond (£25k), in the middle range Before I Go to Sleep (£3.3m) and in the upper range Johnny English Reborn (£32m). 

Box Office

Films featuring BESEA actors in their casts demonstrate a wider variety of box office returns, from Johnny English Reborn (£20.7m) and Mary Queen of Scots (£9.3m) to Anna and The Apocalypse (£32k) and Stratton (£28k). At the lower end, there are Gangsters, Gamblers and Geezers (£2k) and The Darkest Universe (£2k).

Release size

In addition, the films cover a better scope of release sizes too, including a number of saturation releases, e.g. The Personal History of David Copperfield at 680 screens and All Stars at 441 screens. At the lower end, Black Pond at three screens, and in the middle, The Double with 79 screens.

ESEA Heritage

The ESEA heritages of actors in these films are predominantly Chinese and Japanese, with the vast majority of the remaining backgrounds excluded.

Tokenism

Gemma Chan stars in 4 of the 17 films. Mak observes:

“When East Asians finally “make it” to the top, such as Gemma Chan landing a lead role in Humans or Katie Leung starring as a romantic interest to Harry Potter, the industry becomes complacent with casting these big names who they have helped create. Essentially, traditional mainstream companies engage in an exercise of patting themselves on the back for apparent “diversity”, yet refusing to cultivate new talents from the East Asian community.” (Mak 2019).

Power-holders, intentionally or unconsciously select one, or a few marginalized talents to succeed which gives an impression of broader inclusion. The dangers of tokenism are well documented - it is a form of performative inclusion that often comes at the expense of a wider community. If tokenism is the problem, then pluralism is the solution.

Table showing all BESEA starring  films January 2011-January 2021.

On-screen representation in television versus cinema

These findings mirror observations found in Dr. Jami Rogers’ Equity report: Diversity in Broadcast Peak Scripted Television which examined primetime television broadcast by the BBC One, BBC Two, ITV and Channel 4 in 2018. In this study on-screen representation, the data was broken down by ethnicity and showed:

• 82% White

• 9% African-Caribbean

• 7% South Asian

• 1% East/South East Asian

• 1% Middle Eastern

The report concluded that BESEA people are severely under-represented.  What was telling, is that in entire year on the major flagship continuing drama series there was zero on-screen BESEA representation:

Taken from Dr. Jami Rogers Equity report: Diversity in Broadcast Peak Scripted Television

Both television broadcasters and film industry executives are failing in relation to inclusion where it comes to the BESEA community. The severe lack of inclusion requires urgent attention.

Leading Roles

The Comscore data was then further examined to see whether the BESEA cast featured were in leading or secondary roles.

Looking at the data in this regard exposes that of the 17 films listed, 5 featured a BESEA in a leading role.  These leading roles account for 29% of all the films with BESEA cast, and 0.5% of all the British films examined. Typically, BESEA actors are playing secondary or smaller roles in British films. In the US, Annenberg study data shows that 1% of lead roles go to Asian Americans.

These findings confirm a reported experience of ESEA actors as typically not being perceived as leading acting material. Such is the prevalence and frustration of this view, that screenwriter and author, Charles Yu, predicated an entire novel, Interior Chinatown  in order to satirize that falsehood, but also to expose the dangers of that perception:

“Yu explores in devastating (and darkly hilarious) fashion Hollywood’s penchant for promoting clichés about Asians and Asian-Americans. Wu has worked his way from “Background Oriental Male” to “Dead Asian Man” to “Generic Asian Man Number Three/Delivery Guy” — a long way from “Kung Fu Guy,” which is where he wants to be.”

The Relationship Between Off-Screen and On-Screen Representation

The eight narrative films directed by BESEA were also examined for BESEA on-screen representation.

Of the eight narrative films helmed by BESEA directors, six featured BESEA cast. 

This suggests a relationship and an interconnectedness between off-screen and on-screen representation - films created by BESEA writers and directors are more likely to also feature BESEA actors. 

Conclusion

The film industry is part of an entrenched and long-standing colonial system which has put into play a complex set of robust, and often insidious forces that are intent on the continued marginalization of the BESEA community.  This system houses near impossible conditions for BESEA directors and actors to thrive and sustain careers.  

With BESEA helmed films typically occupying the lower end of the budget scale, and also receiving less distribution support, these films are perceived to underperform at the box office - informing and sustaining the viewpoint that BESEA directed films are risky and not commercial. This contributes to an ecosystem in which BESEA helmed films are rarely supported by the industry, thus relegating BESEA filmmakers to the margins of an industry.

Films featuring BESEA characters are more likely to be helmed by a BESEA director. To stimulate opportunities for BESEA actors, and to increase visible representation of BESEA faces, voices and stories on our screens, the industry should look at who it is they are supporting behind the camera - or more simply, at understanding the nuance that it is who you fund not what you fund, that will make the biggest positive impact.

The exclusion has a knock-on effect for audiences:- with so few BESEA directors being able to get their films made and widely seen, the BESEA community do not see themselves reflected in the cinema, especially in films that authentically represent their lived experiences. This creates narrative poverty for the BESEA community, thus reinforcing their marginalization. But it also has deep implications for the wider society, who are mainly exposed to harmful stereotypes and are not afforded normalized and authentic depictions of the BESEA community. The very real fall out from this has already been witnessed through the rapid and sharp rise of COVID fuelled Asian hate in the UK and in the United States, which has resulted in real lives being lost.

Recommendations

Power-holders need to start fully understanding diversity and that begins with acknowledging how different communities are marginalized differently. For the BESEA community, there has been a long history of exclusion which has given rise to varied forms of systemic racism, much of which has evolved to remain invisible to the untrained eye. Recognition of BESEA experience is the first step. 

Next, to increase representation, power-holders need to understand how on-screen representation is related to representation off-screen.  That to generate more and better visible representation on-screen they should invest in more representation off-screen.

This point is particularly important, given that in a colonially rooted system, the risk is of the status quo co-opting the cultures and narratives of marginalized communities. This will give the appearance of an inclusive society, but, in actuality the practice of co-option is another form of oppression. Supporting marginalized communities in telling their own stories is key to genuine allyship, as opposed to performative allyship. 

The powers that be also need to move beyond tokenistic gestures and to engage with actions that propagate pluralism - it is through this that we can transition from narrative poverty to plentitude.

In film distribution, there is an urgent need to normalise and reframe the perception of BESEA talent and their stories as not being ‘risky’. This relies on challenging the long-entrenched traditions of the UK distribution industry, and the gatekeepers that uphold them. Throughout the British film industry, a largely homogenous workforce is preventing diverse talent from prospering. 

This study was only able to examine British films that were theatrically released, who they were helmed by, and the main cast featured in them. The final recommendation is that further research is done to:

• Examine how BESEA producers and writers are working in the industry.

• Discover which films are being supported at the development stage.

• Ascertain which films are being supported at the production stage.

• What the ethnic breakdown of students attending film schools is.

The Authors

This report was written by Chi Thai and Delphine Lievens. 

Delphine Lievens is a Senior Box Office Analyst at Gower Street Analytics, where she provides forecasting and box office analysis for a number of international clients in the area of film distribution and exhibition.  

Chi Thai is an independent filmmaker who works across features, documentary, animation & immersive media. She has been a Cannes Lion finalist three times and was listed among Creative England’s Top creative companies. She is a recipient of the BFI Vision Award.