Oscar winner attacks BBC Susan Thompson Kevin Macdonald, whose Oscar-winning documentary One Day in September appeared on Storyville last year, has hit out at the BBC claiming it has "forgotten its remit to produce informative programmes". Macdonald, who also directed The Last King of Scotland, has joined the campaign to save Storyville from what is understood to be a proposed cut of over 50% from it annual budget of £2.2m to £1m. This would likely result in it buying-in programmes rather than financing UK co-productions with countries from around the world - a claim the BBC has denied. Macdonald said: "I think it is totally outrageous that the BBC is so savagely cutting the budget of the one remaining strand of quality documentaries on the whole network. It is nothing short of vandalism." He added: "When one considers how little money we are talking about in the scheme of what the BBC spends on its programming, it is particularly galling. Yet again the BBC demonstrates that it has forgotten its remit to produce informative programmes in favour of just giving in to the lowest common denominator. An ipetition set up by October Films' Tom Roberts, freelancer Leslie Woodhead, Le Vision Film Productions head of development Friederike Freier and Renegade Pictures' Alex Cooke, to save the strand has so far attracted more than 2,500 signatures. MacDonald's credits also include Touching the Void, My Enemy's Enemy and Humphrey Jennings: The Man Who Listened to Britain.

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