A Sight & Sound Book of the Year
"Eye-opening and addictively readable." Total Film
Who and what decides if a film gets funded? How do those who control the purse strings also determine a film's content
and even its message? Writing as the director of award-winning feature films including Welcome to Sarajevo, 24 Hour Party People and The Road to Guantanamo as well as the hugely popular The Trip series, Michael Winterbottom provides an insider's view of the workings of international film funding and distribution, revealing how the studios that fund film production and control distribution networks also work against a sustainable independent film culture and limit innovation in filmmaking style and content. In addition to reflecting upon his own filmmaking career, featuring critical and commercial successes alongside a 'very long list' of films that didn't get made, Winterbottom also interviews leading contemporary filmmakers including Lynne Ramsay, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, Asif Kapadia and Joanna Hogg about their filmmaking practice.
The book closes with a vision of how the contemporary filmmaking landscape could be reformed for the better with fairer funding and payment practices allowing for a more innovative and sustainable 21st century industry.

Michael Winterbottom is the director of award-winning films and TV series including Jude (1996); Welcome to Sarajevo (1997); Wonderland (1999); 24 Hour Party People (2002); The Road to Guantanamo (2006); The Trip series, as well as the 2019 feature Greed (2019). He is currently working on a TV mini-series focusing on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's handling of the Covid-19 crisis.

FOREWORDS
Dark Matter
The Starting Point
More is More
INTERVIEWS
Pawel Pawlikowski
Danny Boyle
Joanna Hogg
Asif Kapadia
James Marsh
Andrew Haigh
Carol Morley
Edgar Wright
Steve McQueen
Lynne Ramsay
Stephen Daldry
Ben Wheatley
Peter Strickland
Mike Leigh
Ken Loach
AFTER WORDS
Production Companies: A Protected Space
Some Numbers
More Numbers
British Cinema and Television
A Note on the Author