The British Film Institute has announced that it will no longer fund films that feature villains with facial scars, reported The Telegraph. The decision was announced as part of #IAmNotYourVillain, a campaign launched by a charity called Changing Faces to remove the stigma around disfigurement, the publication added.
“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,” Ben Roberts, the BFI’s deputy CEO, said.
The BFI’s diversity standards value “meaningful representations on screen” and this campaign ties in with that principle, he added.
“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,” Becky Hewitt, the chief executive of Changing Faces, told The Telegraph. Hewitt added that the influence of such films on children is “particularly worrying”.
The BFI had recently funded Dirty God, a film about a woman in South London rebuilding her life after an acid attack. The film stars a burns survivor in the lead role.
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