Glasgow Film Theatre faces losing long-term council community funding, a move that amounts to sheer cultural vandalism in a long sequence of neglect towards cinema in Scotland, writes Derek McArthur.

I must be very real here; Scotland has not been kind to the art of film.

The idea, even, of “Scottish film” is an invention of recent years, one that's failed to deliver on the many past promises of the post-war era. The decades following the Second World War were supposed to be a flourishing time of development for Scottish film. So little of it actually came to fruition.

It now functions in the modern day as an industry, reliant on temporary and casual employment, and stuffed with overly bureaucratic public bodies recently reported as ‘afraid to take risks’. Playing it safe, in other words.

It gives me no joy saying any of that. I almost feel ashamed of expressing it as a happenstance journalist observing from the shadows. But those within the systems in which film and the arts operate are bound by their livelihood and best interest to not speak out. It affects me little what politics goes on behind the scenes, or if anyone has a problem with what I have to say.

But there really is no better and most obvious........

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