Roger Michell, the British director behind Venice competition title “The Duke” and films such as “Notting Hill” and “Venus,” says he feels “great sympathy” for the BBC and its ongoing tensions with the U.K.
government.Speaking at a press conference for “The Duke” in Venice, alongside star Jim Broadbent (co-star Helen Mirren did not make the trip to Italy) and producer Nicky Bentham, Michell said the issue of who will foot the bill for TV license fees for people over 75 years old “feels like another attempt to curtail the power of BBC to make it less likely that its Charter will be renewed.”The matter of the BBC’s license fee, a mandatory £157.50 ($207) annual payment that helps the public broadcaster fund its programs, is central to “The Duke,” which stars Broadbent as disabled pensioner Kempton Bunton, who stole a painting in 1961 in protest of an extravagant sum paid by
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