Not such good news for the film loving community of DC.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts is in the process of shuttering their film and media arts program.
For the past three years, NMWA screenings been one of this city's best kept secrets - provocative, artistic, and brilliantly curated.
If you've had the good fortune to visit, you would have seen:
- The work of Euzhan Palcy, who was the first Black woman to direct a Hollywood film (A Dry White Season)
- Films from the African Diaspora
- The premiere of The Last Mistress by Catherine Breillat (as an aside - what a brilliantly beautiful film!)
- And on August 27th, NWMA and One in Ten are partnering on a retrospective of Cheryl Dunye's short films. Come to this. Seriously.
Dunye is arguably the reason that I run a gay film festival - I still passionately believe that festivals continue to be the foot in the door for incredibly talented filmmakers.
That she's now living in Amsterdam, after a brief flirtation with Hollywood, seems to increase her awesomeness even more somehow. Hell, if filmmakers take that foot in the door and use it to bunk off to another country, more power to them! She's built up enough karmic goodwill with Watermelon Woman and Stranger Inside that she could spend the rest of her life directing commercials for Hummers and still come out ahead.
Back to NMWA's decision, though, and this maelstrom of emotion it's brought up in me.
In this day and age, when it seems that there is a very public disavowal of women's film, their decision seems incredibly short-sighted. No longer can museums function simply as a receptacle for the past - they have to look forward to survive. And frankly, including a film program in an art museum isn't even progressive any more - it should be a fait acompli. Not only does this ignore years and years of female filmmaking (Dorothy Arzner, anyone?) but it effectively closes the lens on any number of women making films - women in Cambodia, Africa, Nepal - whose work will never see the light of day unless there are programs like this in existence.
So, yeah.. it sucks..
As someone who runs an arts-focused non-profit, though, I get that it's tough to fund every program. And this decision is part of a larger issue of funding for women's art, or work, in general.
And I feel a personal responsibility, which also sucks. I'm THAT person. I love the fact that DC has so many film offerings. I talk about it all the time. It's one of my rationales for living here. The festivals. The embassies. The museums. Every single time I attend a film screening at one of these venues, I think to myself "Why don't I do this more?" and vow to make it a weekly habit. And the very next night, I drag myself out of the office and plop in the next Netflix video. Which, admittedly, is usually some TV show like The Wire.
You know how people have a designated friend to get rid of all their porn in case of their untimely death? I need to designate a friend to populate my Netflix queue with art films and delete my history of Seasons 1-4 of The Family Guy.
And frankly.. I'm sick of being told that it's the fault of women that we don't have enough films, enough art, enough funding.
The head of Showtime said that they'd never do another L Word because they don't make any money off of it - women tend to go to L Word parties at bars or at their friend's houses. But I don't see ESPN lamenting the demise of boxing and baseball because of sports bars.
And yes.. I realize that's a flawed argument to a certain extent. And that my simplistic reply to their simplistic premise is a quick race to the bottom and it doesn't matter because in 5 years we're all going to only be watching videos of cats jumping off tables on YouTube anyway and Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or Sergei Lim or whoever ultimately comes to own the Internet is going to be the only person making any money.
And there you have it, folks. Another long-winded rant that comes to no conclusions and resolves not one damn thing.
