Film4 began when founding Chief Executive,
Jeremy Isaacs, assisted by deputy chairman
Richard Attenborough, convinced the board of directors of Channel 4 to provide an initial annual budget of £6 million to make films. The newly formed Channel Four Films was established with a mandate to make around 20 productions annually. Isaacs wanted the station to avoid association with 'single plays' or dramas and came up with the name
Film on Four.
Christopher Morahan was offered the job as Commissioning Editor for Fiction but turned it down. Instead BBC producer
David Rose, who was near retirement, was appointed. The company's first backed feature was
Neil Jordan's debut
Angel (1982), while
Stephen Frears'
Walter was the company's first film broadcast on Channel 4, screened in the evening of the station's launch on 2 November 1982. ''
P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang was screened the following day. Channel Four Films went on to collaborate with key British production entities such as the BFI Production Board, Goldcrest Films, and Merchant Ivory, Their first theatrical success was The Draughtsman's Contract'' (1982), although it was mainly a BFI production. and the company began investing in international titles, including
Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas (1984) and
Jan Švankmajer's Alice (1988). and had secured a licensing deal with Orion Classics for US distribution of titles including
Rita, Sue and Bob Too and
A Month in the Country. Throughout the 1980s, Channel Four Films supported a number of British independent films that achieved critical attention, such as those by
Ken Loach,
Mike Leigh,
Stephen Frears, and
Hanif Kureishi, and produced films including
Wish You Were Here,
Dance with a Stranger,
Mona Lisa, and
Letter to Brezhnev. Mike Leigh later described
Film on Four as having "saved the British film industry...This is a non-negotiable, historical fact of life and anybody who suggests that this isn't the case is simply either suffering from some kind of ignorance or has got some terrible chip." approving the production of 136 films, half of which received theatrical releases. Following Rose's departure,
David Aukin became Head of Drama in 1990, later retitled Head of Film in 1997. Film Four Distributors' first release was
Blue Juice in September 1995. Its first major successes included
Secrets & Lies and
Brassed Off (both 1996). In 1998, the company was rebranded as FilmFour, with an increased annual budget of £32 million for 8–10 films. In February of 2003, Gulch stepped down. Later that year, Peter Carlton was appointed as his successor. Mounting financial losses led to significant restructuring in 2002, with the company reintegrated into Channel 4's drama department. The brand was relaunched as Film4 Productions in 2006 to coincide with the rebranding of the Film Four channel as
Film4. The
Film4.0 initiative was launched in 2011, funding such films as
Ben Wheatley's
A Field in England (2013) and the
Nick Cave musical documentary
20,000 Days on Earth (2014). Eventually, the Film4.0 brand was quietly dropped. == Leadership ==