The 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival ~ March 23-28, 2010 ~ The Historic Michigan Theater
The 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival ~ March 23-28, 2010 ~ The Historic Michigan Theater
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Named Films/Artists of the Censorship ControversyThe following films were used against the Ann Arbor Film Festival by Michigan legislators and special interest groups in the 2006-2007 attempt to cease state-subsidized funding for the festival and against public funding for the arts. The AAFF believes that public support of diverse artistic voices is critical to a healthy culture and democracy. We graciously thank the following filmmakers and artists for their continued support:
A letter written to Michigan State Representative Leon Drolet defending her film and the Ann Arbor Film Festival. March 22, 2006 Dear Mr. Drolet, I am not writing today to argue the benefits of arts funding, although it seems you might benefit from some persuasion. Take an art class. You might change your mind. Nor am I writing to argue about contentious definitions of pornography or the censorship of works deemed "offensive," although your statements certainly call for such a debate. What concerns me more is that you may be presenting your case with an ill-informed opinion. It would be remiss for me to ignore that your position is defended by at least one definite untruth. You cite "The Arousing Adventures of Sailor Boy" as one example of "offensive" "pornography" made with Michigan taxpayer dollars and you use this example to argue your position against Senate Bill 242, which would provide supplemental funding to the Department of History, Arts and Libraries that might fund further projects such as this. "The Arousing Adventures of Sailor Boy" was independently made in the Canadian province of Manitoba. It is sexually suggestive, but not explicit, nor does it feature nudity, which are two essential elements of "pornography." Both the Winnipeg Film Group and Manitoba Film and Sound have supported the film’s post-production. The Winnipeg Film Group holds the distribution contract for this film. Not one penny of Michigan money was invested in the production of "Sailor Boy." In fact, its only link to Michigan is the Ann Arbor Film Festival, where it played in 2004. The Ann Arbor Film Festival is world-renowned and the oldest festival of its kind in North America. It has helped support the careers of numerous artists, such as Andy Warhol, Brian de Palma, and Gus van Sant and has consistently upheld a commitment to high quality, challenging visual art. I consider it an honour to have had my film validated by such a festival and the people of Michigan should be proud to host it. I believe many already are. If your wish is to attack this festival, then by all means, bring this up in the Michigan Legislature to support your position on Bill 242. However, I feel that in so doing, support for your argument will significantly wane. In the future, kindly refrain from using erroneous statements about films and other art work with which you have no personal familiarity to prop up your arguments. It is offensive to waste Michigan taxpayers' money on legislative deliberations that are poorly researched and presented in half-truths. Sincerely, cc: Michigan Republican Party, Michigan Democratic Party, Metro Detroit Club of the CPUSA, Constitution Party of Michigan / US Taxpayers Party of Michigan, Green Party of Michigan, Independence Party of Michigan, Libertarian Party of Michigan, Socialist Party of Michigan, The Michigan Daily, The State News, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Winnipeg Film Group, Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs, Michigan Film Office I am an artist and a full-time teacher in Art and Art History at DePaul University in Chicago. All my work centers around our physical bodies and psychological and social violence, ties that bind us together. I don't just work in film, my work is interdisciplinary in using film, video, photography, live performance, sound, and sculpture. It is often site specific to the place it is presented. Often it begins in an event that contains many of these elements and is ultimately condensed into a single stand-alone film or series of photographs. Chests grew out out of a performance installation about my father, who is dead, and issues of masculinity, posturing and about conflict that is not specific to a sex or gender. Headless, repetitive conflict that is never ending. What you see in the film began in live action on a stage, that included crying machines and a human sized hamster cage, and text from Sam Shepherd's poem Repeat, which is among other things, about not making the same mistakes over and over again. I view this film as a kind of vaudeville that's funny and disturbing and entertaining. It is not about sex though it has a sexual undertow. It's not about being gay, though it features two bare male chests. It doesn't depict anything different than what you might see in a boxing match. I was completely thrilled when it was accepted for inclusion in the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Six months after it was exhibited here in Ann Arbor, I received an email from someone who wrote me this:
I explained to James that this was not a film that would be the cost of a commercial DVD; would be considerably more expensive than he might expect. I told him he could watch 60 seconds or so of it on my website. And I told him if he did decide he still wanted to purchase it that the price was $500. Frankly, I thought that would be the end of it because I didn't think that a student would be able to afford to buy the film for that price. However, after that I received several phone messages from the student's boss, the director of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, who said that he did indeed wish to buy the film, and for that amount. We kept missing each other and he finally reached me while I was sitting on a plane at the Santa Fe airport. At that time, he told me that he didn't want it just for personal use, but wanted to show it on his website. I had looked at his Website and was now very suspicious because to my mind it was full of right-wing vitriolic statements. I told him that web viewing was a whole different fee structure and asked why he wanted to show it on the website. I was initially innocent enough to think that it might represent conflict between political parties for his organization, an entertaining kind of moving graphic. He hemmed and hawed and said that the website would not make any commentary on the artistic merit of the film, but that he wanted to show examples of what state public funding was supporting, that it was part of a state budget analysis, and that his organization did not support public funding of this sort. I was completely taken aback. "So you want to show my film as an example of what NOT to fund?" and he said, "Well, yes." And I replied, "Well, no, I don't think so." Mind you, he still had never seen the film. We hung up. I heard nothing else about it until the Festival contacted me alerting me to what had happened. At first, this was a funny story. Oh guess what? That short I made was labeled pornographic by these right-winger legislators in Michigan. People in Chicago would laugh or look suspicious, incredulous, "What?" Distrustful and not-believing. And then laughing. The actors got a kick out of calling themselves porn stars for a while. But the reality sinks in. And frankly, it kicks me in the gut. Tens of thousand of dollars were lost because of this joke. But as important as the money is—and it is important—it is small compared to the impact of the act of defining the art and the terms of funding against all laws to the contrary. These lawmakers made up their own laws and there are deadly cautionary tales from history that begin with this kind of story. This is something that we cannot let happen. It is outrageous. And I deeply respect and appreciate the Festival and the ACLU for taking up an extremely unpopular fight. Who wants to take on fighting a seemingly petty label when the economy is so unstable, the unemployment rate is so high, the war is still raging in Iraq, the student loan rate is skyrocketing and arts funding is being shredded without this kind of unpopular battle. But this film is by no means pornographic, there is no definition for what that is, and we cannot allow our 1st amendment rights to be so easily gutted and trampled. This is exactly what happened in the fifties with McCarthyism. People feared standing up and one by one, hundreds of people, many famously in the film industry (by the way), that seemed to have so little to do with politics, lost their jobs and their careers and entire lives were utterly ruined. That was then and this is now. We cannot allow ourselves to think that it cannot happen again. It is happening again and I deeply appreciate and support the Ann Arbor Film Festival and the ACLU for taking up this fight. We cannot forget what has happened in the past. We cannot allow history to repeat itself. We cannot afford to be naïve. We cannot say this is not important enough right now. Dolores Wilbur After working for 2 years with a partner on story board driven film "Natasha" (we had fights and discussions every day) I wanted to make a film that didn’t have a story board nor discussions, nor a partner. I wanted to make a film driven by my subconscious mind, free and improvisational, which is not as animation is usually done. I didn’t censor/censure my ideas, I just let them out. They symbolically represent a state of sexuality, mine, yours, theirs. The events depicted in Five F**cking Fables are NOT real – they are symbolical representations of something else. Signe Baumane I first came to Ann Arbor in 2004, with a film that participated in the preselection for the German Short Film Award. In Ann Arbor, that film was one among ten films that were part of a program called Sex and Sadness. Therefore my trip was funded by the German Goethe Institute for the artistic impact of my work. That funding helped make the follow-up film "No American Dream" possible. I feel degraded and misunderstood that my film was used against the Ann Arbor Film Festival and public funding fort he arts. My film deals with the complications and the contradictions, the hopes and fears one has to undergo in the run of finding and losing love. Sexuality is one important part of that – and the search for romantic love and sexuality has always been one of Thee Issues of literature as well as of film (no matter if Hollywood mainstream or underground). Independent cinema choses different ways of expression. I am very irritated by the fact my film "No American Dream" is accused of being "pornographic" as it does not even contain erotic footage. It is more or less a diary about my personal experiences coming to the U.S. as a film maker. The search for the American Dream is a quote from the film "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." It was my own search – so I would ask the people I’d meet if this dream still existed. Most of them came up with a critical point of view on the question. Again, "No American Dream" is a film about human hopes and dreams, both personal and political ones. The film got as well shown at Leipzig Documentary Film Festival. If censorship goes to the point, that basic facts and objections of life cannot be expressed anymore in a No-Budget Film without causing public debates about funding Independent Film Fests, then it is time to question the freedom of speech in this country. Where do we go? Which limitation will be next? (And by the way - What is this big issue with pornography?) Ann Arbor as a Film Festival has its great reputation throughout the years from showing a wide variety of independent cinema and artistic films and has created a unique open space for all kinds of experimental film making. These films are not sponsored by the industry and don´t even feed the artists, so unfortunately a festival like that needs the support from the outside in order to exist at all. I refuse to have my work used against the makers of the A.A.F.F. They deserve the biggest respect. Julia Ostertag My work often deals with the distanced relationship we have with our bodies, highlighting how the conflict between the 'natural' and ‘cultural’ has a grip on the contemporary psyche. In our culture excretions are considered as "dirty". With this point of view the body or part of it become something disgusting respectively ugly, in the best case something improper. The discriminations of these parts of the body are related with the desire of the human to be something better, to distinguish oneself from the animals. But it is obvious that, in relations to the primary needs of life, there are no fundamental differences between humans and animals. Yuri A * Film was included on the Banned in Michigan DVD |