From: Pip Chodorov (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Feb 22 2011 - 13:40:12 PST
Nicky and all,
there are other movements afoot to reverse this decision.
Maybe you can contact David to join forces.
-Pip
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: DAVID LEISTER <email suppressed>
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 8:01 PM
Subject: Urgent 16mm news
Dear Friends,
I'm forwarding a copy of a letter from Tacita Dean, who's trying to
co-ordinate an effective response to the news that Deluxe are stopping
16mm printing at Soho images.
As she makes clear, we need an International response, with as many
film makers/producers, artists, galleries, Industry heads, curators...
as we can get. Please use your networks to spread the word, so we can
emphasise the importance of keeping the 16mm lab running, or,
alternatively, try and encourage the establishing of some alternative
resource.
If you wish to sign the letter or be involved please email me back
directly, as we are helping to compile the list of supporters for the
letter. This is to avoid Tacita being overrun with mail. You will
then be updated on any further developments.
Many thanks and best wishes
David
Dear All,
As I imagine you all probably know by now, the take-over of Soho Images by
Deluxe has lead to the decision last week to stop 16mm print with immediate
effect. I was in the lab on Thursday & Friday last week with Len when he was
told he couldn't take any more orders.
Anyway, I don't think we should let this happen without making some noise.
I've been told there isn't a hope in hell of shifting the decision locally
and that we have to go higher and to the US, so I've gone to extremes and
already made contact with Thelma Schoonmaker (ie hopefully Scorsese) and
written to Spielberg!!
But our real hope perhaps lies in taking the argument away from the cinema
industry. The owner of Deluxe is Ron Perelman, an unsavoury US businessmen
who has made his fortune buying up companies and stripping them of their
assets. He is also, or has been, a patron of the arts. Through the
Guggenheim, I'm hoping to get a letter to him with many co-signatories - so
far: MOMA, the Whitney, hopefully the Tate and as many artists, filmmakers,
institutions and galleries we can muster. This is where I need everyone's
help. We need to get this list together as soon as we can, so please anyone
who can be informed and who is happy to sign or contribute, please for the
moment let me know (through yourselves so I don't get inundated with
emails).
I am writing an article for The Guardian, and have also been in contact with
the NY Times. We have to take this argument over the pond.
The decision, of course, is cultural rather than financial. Len said they're
backed up with work but to the cinema industry execs, 16mm printing is time
taken away from feature work and feature work is all that counts.
Failing to get them to reverse the decision, we must try and finds a means
to at least get more time. In the end, we will probably need to set up, what
is now being called "a boutique laboratory", possibly with the BFI, and the
best hope is that Deluxe work with us in pursuit of this and not against us
(ie not trash the equipment).
Best wishes,
Tacita
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