From: shelly silver (email suppressed)
Date: Sun Jun 25 2006 - 06:42:37 PDT
>
>Judges' Statement:
>"We want to call attention to the underrepresentation of women in this year's
>festival. While it is not uncommon in both mainstream and alternative
>media festivals for the makers to be mainly men, we are aware of the
>multitudes of exceptional female experimental filmmakers, both here and
>abroad. Hence their relative absence at Onion City, and in our own awards
>roster, took
>us by surprise. Here's hoping for more equal representation in future years."
>
>we all agreed on the wording of this statement. and i know we all also
>agreed that in past years there has been more equal representation, and
>that we thought your programming was excellent. so i hope you don't take
>this statement too much to heart. it was just something we felt it was
>important to point out.
>thanks again for including me in one of the best festival experiences i've
>had.
>-jennifer
hey all:
as far as i'm concerned, the above is not an accusation or an
indictment of the onion city festival, far from it (it's actually a
'hope'). the statement makes an observation about the paucity of
women filmmakers showing at a particular festival in a particular
year, and raises a simple question 'why weren't there more?' this is
a perfectly valid question for members of a jury to raise and
statements like this are quite common in jury's remarks. i'd think
it would be up to the organizers of the festival, if they found it
useful, to fill in any pertinent details - to explain more of the
outreach process, the submissions received as well as the selection
procedure.
i also think that putting it out on a list like this where hundreds
of curators, organizers and filmmakers will read and discuss it is
perfectly appropriate and for me, very interesting, as it makes us
all reflect on possible problems - problems that may not exist (as
several people on the list seem to feel) or may not necessarily be
directly connected to this particular festival. jury's remarks are,
in my experience, always made public - they are typically read during
the awards ceremony, quoted in the press and published in catalogues.
the statements (as is the one above) are understood to be from the
point of view of the members of the jury. one can agree or disagree
with this statement - why it has been taken as an inappropriate
frameworks statement completely escapes me.
best,
shelly
ps: i personally feel that gender bias in our society is alive and well.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.