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| Chantal Akerman (image: Liberation) |
I tried to write about why I felt so deeply sad about Chantal Akerman's death, then read a post from poet Ana Božičević, who got it just right for me–
No one knows for sure why a woman takes her life but that Chantal A might have done so in part because her No Home Movie– about her mother Natalia an Auschwitz survivor, which was grueling to make – was booed...really breaks my heart this morning. I wonder always, who cares, as in provides care, for the women artists who go to deep dark uncommercial places? Which intimate understands the skill, of craft and emotion, necessary for the work that they do? I wrote in some napkin or tweet once 'they only love the Sylvias after they are dead'. Give care to the woman artist in your life even and especially when she does the hard depth work that challenges the mind and body, yours and hers. And if you are that woman, thank you today & every day.Thank you, Ana. And many thanks for letting me reprint your words. An extract from No Home Movie is at the end of this post.
Short Film as Pipeline to Features: New & Old Research
On the same morning Media, Diversity & Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California (MDSC) released its new study which shows this–
This reminded me that in 2007 there were similar issues for New Zealand women, according to the New Zealand Film Commission's (NZFC) research, which I wrote about in my PhD–
...making a successful (usually NZFC-funded) short film is an established pathway to feature making. Analysis of the director information in the NZFC’s Review of NZFC Short Film Strategy shows that over the last decade fewer women (37% of the total) than men directors make NZFC-funded short films. However the women directors make a proportionately higher share of films accepted for ‘A’ list film festivals (42% of all accepted) than the men; and as individuals are significantly more likely to make an ‘A’ list film: 60% of women-directed short films get accepted for an ‘A’ list festival, but only 48% of those with male directors. I don’t know whether women from other countries use short films as stepping-stones to features more or less successfully than New Zealanders. [In the last ten years, New Zealand women directors made 13% of all our features, or 17% if we include features they co-directed with men; women also directed 20% of our all-time top-grossing films.]It's probably time the NZFC repeated their short film research.
Now, thanks to the MDSC I know more about the United States' pathways. And about the barriers the women in the MDSC research identified (I wish the research had had a male control group: would they have had greater or lesser concerns about 'General Finance', which I think is an issue for every single filmmaker? If they were not white men, would they have had greater or lesser concerns about stereotyping?)
