CampbellX and her 'Stud LIfe' feature

I was very excited when I saw CampbellX’s Stud Life in New Zealand’s Out Takes Film Festival programme. I’ve been longing to see it. And wanted to see it for the first time on a big screen because when I’ve seen some of Campbell’s earlier work online it’s seemed very cinematic. Too cinematic for my laptop.

An actor, cinematographer, curator and writer, Campbell's directed BD Women (1994), Viva Tabatha (1995), Ragga Gyal D'bout! (2006), Legacy (2006), Fem (2007), Paradise Lost (2007) and Broken Chain (a collaboration with writer Mark Norfolk 2008). She also collaborates with other directors, including Cheryl Dunye and Lisa Gornick.

CampbellX

For me, Campbell is also a visionary. Her Radical Film Manifesto has inspired me and her social media practices have provided me with models to follow. And as I write this on Mothers Day, I'm reminded that there are diverse definitions of 'motherhood' and that we need to keep track of our filmmaker matrilineage; Campbell's certainly in that lineage as far as I'm concerned.

Campbell was the first woman filmmaker I knew of who crowd-funded for a feature and who built a strong community around that. The tagline for her Blackman Vision site is the breathtaking ‘when the lioness can tell her story, the hunter no longer controls the tale’. I love Isis Asare's Sistah Cinema interview with Campbell and two actors from Stud Life, T'Nia Miller and Robyn Kerr. It's embedded below – comprehensive, beautiful, illuminating and inspiring. I strongly recommend it as the go-to watch, especially if you're a filmmaker yourself. But here’s a little Q & A as well.

Q: You’re a writer of fiction and non-fiction, a curator, and have made non-fiction short films. What drew you to long-form work and to fiction? Why a feature film rather than a novel or a webseries?

A: I love the accessibility of the moving image and the ability to tell stories with pictures and sound. I love to work with actors and the collaboration with different team members to create something bigger and better than my screenplay. There is also something to watching a movie in the cinema with an audience sharing a collective experience. We as humans still have the ancient need within us that craves storytelling around a fire. The fire has just been replaced by the silver screen or the glowing TV set/computer screen.

I would love to do a webseries some day. I think there is something to be said for short episodes which people can carry around with them on their hand held devices. It is rather reminiscent of the way Charles Dickens told stories and I quite like that.

T'Nia Miller and Robyn Kerr
photo: Paula Harrowing

Q: You’ve said that Stud Life is a homage to Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It and Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies And Videotape. You’ve also referred to it as a rom com. What drew you to comedy and what aspects of She's Gotta Have It and Sex, Lies And Videotape are you especially paying homage to?

I am not really drawn to comedy. LOL. It just happened that what I wrote made people laugh! She's Gotta Have It was a film where Spike Lee took a risk to tell his own story and used some monologues with people talking to camera. I used the same device but updated it for the 21st Century by making the lead character use vlogging on YouTube. With Sex Lies and Videotape am inspired by the self reflexive way of documenting oneself. In Stud Life it is done using photography. JJ (the stud lesbian and lead character played by T'Nia Miller) is a wedding photographer so that is her job, but she is also documenting her life with video and photographs. The actual wedding photographs are taken by Del La Grace Volcano.

Q: In an After Ellen interview, you said

I try to create a Black queer aesthetic which means I reject the white LGBT way of looking at Black LGBT culture in particular and Black culture in general. And that is a challenge because I am going against the grain in many ways.

 What does a Black queer aesthetic means to you?

A: A Black queer aesthetic means a way of telling stories and using certain images that go against the grain of a Eurocentric heteronormative transphobic vision. So in my films dark-skinned women will be represented, masculine females, trans people, fat women, older women etc. All those people generally erased from dominant Hollywood studio based cinema. Stud Life is a story of friendship between a Black lesbian and a white gay man. Both demographics that are normally pitted against each other. I refuse to play by those divide and conquer rules. Through my films I want people to see the humanity of LGBT, QPOC and women and realise that our stories are universal. We have been brainwashed to think only straight white male imaginings represent the entire human experience! Filmmakers like Tina Mabry, Dee Rees and Cheryl Dunye have a Black queer aesthetic in their filmmaking.

Who did you wake up with, your lover or your best friend? Kyle Treslove and  T'Nia Miller
photo: Paula Harrowing

Q: Part of your storytelling, according to the interview with Sistah Sinema, is about playing with form and content, fiction and documentary. I loved it when you said something like ‘We’re here, don’t forget us, don’t forget us, never forget us. We have a legacy'. And I loved hearing about the role of Del La Grace Volcano’s work in the film, about writing his images back into history, through the wedding photographs and images on the wall.  It will enrich my viewing to go in with that info. Can you write a little bit about how and why you did this? You also included London queer iconic figures – celesbians, celebtrans – including NZ’s Stella Duffy for similar reasons, I think. But those of us who live outside the UK may not recognize them so it’d be good to know about them so we can engage more fully with their presence.

A: I am impatient with our now as LGBTQI seeming obsession with the culture of celebrity as created by dominant mainstream media. They choose people who are safe and often do often not challenge a capitalistic notion of what success means irrespective of sexual orientation, age, gender presentation, ethnicity etc. We have people who have been contributing to LGBTQI culture for decades and without their work our culture would have been much poorer. Because they are not on the cover of Vogue or Elle Glamour does not mean their contribution is not valuable. In addition there are people in the film who are our allies and came to support the making of this film and we appreciate this as well, as allies often get left off the list. Stud Life is an archive within a film. :-) It's like the graffitti on the mainstream wall to say “we were here!”

The Kiwis in Stud Life are Stella Duffy who is an amazing writer, and is one of the polyamorous couples.

Stella Duffy

 And Nikki Lucas who is a DJ in one of the club scenes runs Liberte and Habibi.

Nikki Lucas

Mzz Kimberley is a transwoman who is in the first wedding scene, she is an amazing performer. One of the bouncers in the club is Topher Campbell who is a writer/director and filmmaker and one of the founding members of Rukus! Federation an archive for Queer people of Color in the UK. Naechanè is a transman musician and is the person Elle is dancing with in the club initially and is her fuck buddy. DJ Misty B is the other DJ in the film who plays in the legendary gay club Heaven.

Kathleen Bryson who plays the drunken Leila is a filmmaker and writer.

Kathleen Bryson

In the polyamorous wedding Julie McNamara who has the transman lover is a playwright and the transman is played by performance artist Lazlo Pearlman.

Doña Croll in the barber scene is one of our well known and revered UK Black actresses and we were blessed to have her play a cameo role in the film. She is a wonderful ally and super supportive.

Paula Harrowing who took the production stills and provided that epic photo which is now our poster image was a club promoter for legendary club nights and is now a fashion and film photographer.

The wedding photographs were taken by iconic queer photographer De La Grace Volcano and his early photos are on the walls of the apartments.

The sex toys in the film were provided by Babes n Horny who make bespoke sex toys, as well as Good Vibrations.

We were blessed to have Mick Clark as our music supervisor who was responsible for signing Soul 2 Soul among almost all the other numerous soul acts in the UK.  Our wonderful music in the film came from Be Steadwell who is also a filmmaker and musician, EvOn the Music Bully who runs LGBT Underground which promotes LGBT underground musicians and Potential Productionz who promotes up and coming artists. Zemmy came with love and support, Star AKA Fresh provides the first song you hear in a club in Stud Life.

Cleis Press and Alyson Books were so supportive to us, and we were lucky to have Lulu Belliveau as one of our producers who was one of the originators of Quim magazine There is an image from one of my own previous films and the photo is taken by Laurence Jaugey-Paget.

Elle's beautiful clothes were provided by Gisella Couture.

T'Nia Miller and Robyn Kerr
photo: Paula Harrowing

Q: You’ve also constructed the portrayal of sex very carefully. Can you write a little about how and why?

If you do a Google search 'lesbian sex' the majority of what comes up in the first page is pornography created for a straight male market. Lesbian sex and sexuality has been overwhelmingly appropriated to be used as a sex toy for a heterosexual male gaze. It thus reinforces the widely held idea that 'lesbian sex' is not real sex as there is no bio-cock involved. Gay male sex and sexuality does not suffer from this theft. So this is not an issue about homophobia. It is clearly about the need for women's sexuality to be controlled and confined within a heterosexist and heteronormative paradigm. This rigid framework dictates what 'real sex' is and what a 'sexy woman' should look like.

Stud Life uses a dark-skinned masculine woman and creates her as the one who is sexy and potent yet is also subverted by her vulnerability. She is a stone butch aka 'touch me not stud', a specific lesbian sexual expression. Her femme lover is aggressive in her own love of pussy and she is not afraid to make that known. The sex scenes in Stud Life are not classic (white) 'girl-on-girl' action much beloved of mainstream representation. There is a BDSM scene around trust and control and another intimate scene where body boundaries are discussed. These sex scenes will not be in any mainstream porn movie any time soon.

Stud Life also features a blow job and internet sex with gay men. It is a film about London queer life which would not be complete without that Internet hook up, now would it?

Q: I love it that Del La Grace Volcano writes ‘I believe in crossing the line as many times as it takes to build a bridge we can all walk across’ and think that may be a good description of your work too, in all its facets? Is that partly what drives your work, including your choice of characters? At the very end of the Sistah Sinema interview you say that you wanted to move away from ‘straight’ drama (in two senses?) to portray queer bodies and coloured bodies away from ‘issues’. Can you write a little bit about that?

A: I think there is a reading of the Black body in films as an 'issue'. We are supposed to represent a problem that has to be solved, sympathized with or rescued by the white viewer. Nobody in Stud Life actually wants or needs to be rescued. They are all living their colorful and crazy lives and enjoying it. It is a story about love and friendship that happens to be dominated by LGBT people of all colours and nationalities as well as by straight characters too. The scene in the barbershop is telling as it goes counter to the narrative that ALL black people are homophobic because our culture is innately so. Every human being can relate to at least one character in Stud Life and has done so, from the feedback I have received from various screenings.

Campbell & cast doing a Q & A at LLGFF

Q: Is Stud Life partly about the way ethnic and racial diapsoras in London combine with the diasporas of queers from their heterosexual birth communities?

A: Stud Life is setting the record straight about London! No pun intended. Heh! It is saying London is about diversity. London is full of people who come here to escape the provincial narrowness, to be around other immigrants, to be meet other queers and to participate in a cultural life not possible anywhere else in the UK.

25% of London is comprised of ethnic minorities where it is 8% for the whole of the UK. So it is interesting when you see films set in London there is an ethnic cleansing going on when you rarely see people of colour unless the film is labelled ‘urban’. This happens whether the film is LGBT or not! In Stud Life I wanted to queer the ‘urban’ experience and put some racial diversity into the LGBT filmic experience.


Q: You’ve referred to London slang in Stud Life. Can you talk a little bit about London slang, the linguistic influences on the film?

A: In Stud Life people talk in patois. It is street slang really, a mixture of Cockney and Jamaican Patois and depending on the area there may be Urdu, Gujerati words or Arabic words as well. In the future I am guessing there will be words from Eastern European languages.

There is a common perception among LGBT people and dominant society that when someone comes out they lose their ‘ethnicity’ or run away from it to the land of G.A.Y. a place which is assumed to default to white Eurocentric western values. Many LGBT people resist this – irrespective of their cultures of origin – and are familiar with immigrant origin food, language, nuance and music. These LGBT people are to be found in Black LGBT clubs and neighborhoods where some of them grew up. Seb (the white gay best friend played by Kyle Treslove) is such a person. He is completely at home with black culture.

London is also a place where you will hear different accents and languages. You can go for a day in some places and not hear a pure Cockney accent. This is rarely seen in films. East London where the film is shot is a high immigrant area and I had to be faithful to this experience.

Q: How did you raise the money for Stud Life?

I did crowdfunding doing IndieGoGo to kick start the shooting of the film. Subsequently we had some private investors who believed in my vision. I now notice there is a trend where celebrities are using crowd funding and raising millions. I wonder what impact that will have on people who are trying to do something that is not celebrity led.

Q: Crowdfunding seems to be a perfect fit with your Radical Film Manifesto. Is there anything you’d add to your manifesto, which when I first read it felt much more radical than it seems now (maybe because your vision’s been influential and helped to change the ways many indie filmmakers think and work)?

A: I think that my manifesto is radical if you haven't the confidence to make a film and need to even imagine making a movie. I should update it to be a radical Black queer manifesto maybe.

Take 02!
photo: Paula Harrowing

Q: I was amazed to hear in the Sistah Sinema interview that because you had only ten days to shoot (preceded by two weeks’ rehearsals) there are only two scenes where you had more than one take. It sounds like the rehearsals were key and you all had a great time, but it must also have been very challenging. What did you learn that you’d like to pass on to the rest of us? From any period of the process, from development to distribution.

The rehearsal period was very important to be able to shoot within 10 days. I also had to be very flexible when I got to a location and couldn't film what I wanted to do or had planned for because of the very very changeable weather in the UK!

I learned that actors are awesome beyond awesomeness and I respect their craft even more than I did before Stud Life.

I also learned that people who work in the film industry are very supportive of projects that have vision and passion behind them – whatever your gender or sexuality.

People in the community of East London – shopkeepers, cafe owners were very very supportive and helpful and I would shoot there again.

And I would love more shoot days on my next film please. Though everyone always wants more even if they have 100 days. Heh!

Campbell and T'Nia Miller
photo: Paula Harrowing

Q: Many filmmakers now do their own ‘agenting’. You don’t. Why not?

A: We are distributed in festivals by the Film Collaborative. I think it is hard for filmmakers now who do not have a ‘name’ and I mean like Spike Lee or Kathryn Bigelow to ‘agent’ themselves. You still need some backing from distributors to help sell your film. That may change in the future. But there is a lot of competition for eyeballs. To raise your head above the parapet of internet and cultural noise needs serious time, effort, authority, profile and networks.

Q: When you spoke about creating a queer aesthetic, you also said

My films challenge minority communities out of their comfort zone…Usually people get angry with me when they see my work or they cry. I always try to give visual pleasure through the use of colour and I steal from fashion, pop promos and old movies.

Do you create your films primarily for ‘minority’ communities, or are you looking more broadly? Stud Life had its world premiere at Fusion in LA and has been on the move ever since. What have you learned about its audience?

A: I create films for everyone. Whether ‘everyone’ comes to see the film depends on people's assumptions about using Black queer subjectivity and also not using a white male to tell the story. I think as minorities because we are so under siege we want to see images of ourselves that show how amazing and wonderful we are to counter the unrelenting negative messages that are given about ‘us’. However you will not really find images of perfect bourgeois lifestyles in my films unless they are subverted. Some people find that enraging. My characters are complex – loving and messy, beautiful yet ugly. Stud Life has moments of laughter as well as pathos and people all over the world have laughed and cried at the same spots in the film. So I know it has a universal message. And people of all genders, sexualities and nationalities recognise something of themselves in that story. It makes me realise it is OK to create characters like in Stud Life who would never make it on to a role model list. Somebody else also must have recognised this as Stud Life won the Independent Spirit Award at the Screen Nations Award.

Q: In one article you state that pride means having self-love for your LGBT self and then embracing others who are different to you with compassion and patience. I think that of all the filmmakers I know, you engage with social media most effectively because you embrace others with compassion and patience. When you were on Facebook as an individual, you enabled some discussions that I loved and the Stud Life Facebook page is wonderful, a welcoming, loving, space. It seems to me that your generosity in social media is of huge value in and of itself. But has it made a difference to finding the film’s audience? As a filmmaker, what do you get back from your investment of time and energy online? Also, you have your finger on the pulse re the constant shifts in social media – how would you advise other filmmakers to make best use of it? Where’s the next exciting platform?

A: Aww thanks.

I think social media works well in conjunction with good old fashioned off-line marketing. People still rely on the tried and tested outlets to hear about things. They still use newspapers, TV, radio, billboards to judge whether they should go and see something or not. Stud Life sold out in many of our film festival screenings. However festival audiences are self selecting in their love of cinema. We will see later this year the impact social media has had on our sales.

Basically what would be great is if the people that are ‘othered’ joined together to create a radical film audience who financially supported film outside of the mainstream by demanding they are shown in cinemas, on our TVs, downloaded them legally, and spread the word. We can only show there is an audience for films like Pariah, Alice Walker – Beauty in Truth, Kiss Me, Mosquita y Mari, to name a few, if we part with our money and vote with our feet!

I love the conversations on social media. But there is nothing like IRL communication. Sometimes we get seduced by ‘like’ and think it means something more. Malcolm Gladwell is very critical of social media as an agent for change. I used to disagree with him but having seen United in Anger about the history of Act Up and protest pre Internet, I am re-thinking this. Social media is fantastic but has to be followed up with other forms of communication.

As for the future platforms, I notice the queers have colonised Tumblr and have just invaded Pinterest so watch this space.


Q: Andrew Murphy, the Toronto Inside Out program director, says that finding quality lesbian-themed films remains a challenge. He stated the other day

There seems to be a default into the women has to be crazy or psychotic or she kills her partner or she kills her husband and goes to a woman and always goes back to a man or ends up in prison…I think we’re finally getting out of that a little bit. A good example is our Women’s Spotlight Gala – Reaching for the Moon.

I wonder whether Andrew Murphy’s statement is still largely true, about the films available and about the slight movement beyond the default. But is that slight movement being made by male directors? In Outtakes, the lesbian gala night is of a feature directed by a man. It may be a wonderful film, but I long for more lesbian films made by women. As a curator, what lesbian-made films have influenced or excited you that you’d like introduce to audiences? What do you look for that doesn’t seem to be there?

A: I would like to see more films with older women, more films with women of color, more stories about lesbians which are not driven by a heteronormative capitalistic agenda. More films made by women, written by women. Is that really too much to ask?? And in the Western world we bang on to the Global South countries about how liberated our women are! Really?! Then why we are still relying on men to tell our stories and create our realities? Think of the reverse situation where stories are told from a predominantly female perspective. If it sounds preposterous and one-sided why do we continue to sustain a male driven model?

Stud Life showed at Inside Out and was very well received with a sold out audience. It was also highly recommended by reviewers there. I think we have to ask ourselves some long hard questions about lesbian representation in cinema period. I am personally tired of it being used as a plot twist, or vehicle for titillation in mainstream movies. Dominant movie culture still has a way of pathologising lesbians and over-sexualising bisexual women – Andrew Murphy is right. However many lesbian filmmakers have changed the face of lesbian representation in movies, look at Tina Mabry, Cheryl Dunye, Dee Rees, Yvonne Welbon, Michelle Parkinson to name a few.


Q: Are you developing another feature?

A: I am indeed developing another feature. Can't say more than that! Watch this space. :-)

Q: This isn’t the ‘what happened next’ that is mentioned in the Sistah Sinema interview?

A: No. LOL.



Stud Life site where you can download or stream it
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Stud Life will be available on DVD in July, through Pecadillo Pictures.

Blackman Vision site
CampbellX on Twitter





Sistah Sinema site
Facebook
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Sistah Sinema Google hangout with Isis Asare, CampbellX, T'Nia Miller and Robyn Kerr


CampbellX 'Stud Life' Q & A, at OutFest.

Nathalie Boltt, Clare Burgess & 'The Silk'

I love it when New Zealand women make short films outside ‘the system’ and find success. The Silk is one of these successes. It's Nathalie Boltt's adaptation of a Joy Cowley story, co-produced and co-directed with Clare Burgess. The Silk's been accepted at eleven festivals* where it's won seven awards: five Best Narrative Short Film awards, a Best Acting Award and a Best Cinematography Award. I also have an ongoing interest in actors as writers and directors because it seems to me that they often move behind the camera with real ease; and Nathalie’s a hugely experienced actor as well as a writer/director, so that's another reason to interview her.

Nathalie Boltt

Q: What drew you to The Silk and inspired you to adapt it for the screen? Is it your first script? Were there any particular challenges?

Under-Representation in Scriptwriting (again)

Recently I participated (from my bed, distracted by itchy shingles) in an excellent Blackboard forum discussion on under-representation in scriptwriting, inspired by the news that the prestigious Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting are tracking gender among its applicants. (They have a wonderful ongoing commentary on their Facebook page.) Alas, so far, only a quarter of the applicants are women. According to the Fellowships' Facebook page, for years, the male-female split hovered near 70-30. Recently, however, it has dropped towards 75-25 and they are not sure why that has happened (so they must have been tracking gender for a while, but I think this may be the first year the figures have been public). You have three days left to enter!!!

from Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Facebook page  (26 April 2013)

Helen Mirren Goes For It (& Women Directors in NZ)

Helen Mirren's making a habit of it. When she accepted a lifetime achievement award last year at the Czech Karlovy Vary Festival she said "I don’t know how many female directors are presenting their films in this festival. I very much doubt that it’s 50%" and added that, should she return to Karlovy Vary in five years, she’d want to see at least 50% of the films at the festival being presented by women directors. Now she's done it again, at Britain's Empire Awards, after fellow award-winner Sam Mendes acknowledged a group of directors who'd influenced him, all men. Like other veteran actors – Judi Dench, Meryl Streep – she's uniquely placed to identify changes in the industry and like Meryl Streep, she's happy to speak out.

The last little while I've been working on one piece about women directors in New Zealand, for the Directory of World Cinema: Australia and New Zealand and another for Women Screenwriters: An International Guide, edited by Jill Nelmes and Jule Selbo. Academic writing for the page has become more of a challenge than it was, and it makes me miss writing scripts, filming, producing and the immediacy of activism and the associated online communities that I love.

So, this morning, with thanks to Helen Mirren, a round up of what's going well for New Zealand women directors. But first, a gender analysis of the New Zealand Film Commission's (NZFC) funding decisions for the last quarter, available on its website.

Taking 'Throat Of These Hours' to the States

Struan Ashby & Jessica Charlton prepare to film composer Chris White

This is what I've been up to, from my Throat of These Hours blog. Back to Wellywood Woman very soon, am missing it!

1. Preparation

I want to take my play Throat of These Hours to the United States, take my response to Muriel 'back home' to her place, even though her work belongs to all the world. So the Muriel Rukeyser Centenary Symposium was a great place to start and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to give a Skype presentation. And I wanted to show the work-in-progress, not just to talk about it. A filmed reading and performance of Chris White's songs was the only way.

Two weeks before this morning's presentation at the symposium, I finished the second draft of the Throat of These Hours and – with my beloved writing buddy – chose three related extracts to film. Found the cast and crew, all people I love working with or wanted to work with. Made a date to film seventeen pages of dialogue in three continuous chunks; and two associated songs. Max Schleser organised a perfect space for us at Massey University – a mixing suite that looks a bit like a radio station – and some equipment. Suggested three students to work with us.

Friday a week ago Chris White emailed through her settings for two Rukeyser poems. I listened to them and wept. So beautiful.

Then, last Tuesday, we spent the morning filming Chris performing her compositions. And the afternoon filming three related scenes. An intense adjustment, moving from solitary writer to producer (location, equipment, payment, food) and then to directing. And I didn't get some of it right, as when as director I forgot to give the conventional cues – not quite the same as the 'Everyone ready? Yep? Action--' from last year's 48 Hours competition;  I even (blush) forgot to say 'cut' now and then.

But worst of all, I repeated a mistake I made three years ago, with Development-the-movie. The longest sustained shoots I've been part of were for a fast-turnaround children's television series, where the rule of thumb was that a page of script equalled a minute on screen. And that became heavily embedded in my consciousness, with serious consequences for Development. How did I not remember? John Conly, who did a wonderful job on set with the sound, took the footage away to assemble on his own. Then brought it to me on Thursday for the hour he had available. The assembly was thirty-seven minutes long, for a presentation to last an hour, and include an intro and a Q & A. As John said, we'd shot almost half a feature in a single day. No wonder we were tired, though we started at 8.30 and finished at 4.30. Please, let me remember for ever-and-always that my writing takes two minutes per page on screen.

John and I had just one full play-through of his first edit. Script in hand, I concentrated on the text, because this was a filmed reading, not a film. I saw bits of the edited footage when we paused to fix dialogue and I looked up from the script. And felt again delighted by the performances, beautifully lit and shot by Director of Photography Jessica Charlton, with Struan Ashby and student Danesh Pillay on second camera. And now edited.

John-the-miracle worker took it all away for twenty-four hours and fitted the final version around his other work. Then we met Danesh at Massey on yesterday (Friday) morning and upload to Vimeo. Whew. Done.  (Once again, I'm overwhelmed with the professionalism and generosity of a cast and crew, that beautiful alchemy that happens when highly skilled autonomous individuals give their all to a group project, regardless of the small amount they're paid. So much imagination, skill and problem-solving of a high order. Here we are in a drought, at the end of a long hot summer. It will affect the country's economy. Has anyone considered what a rich resource our artists are in this time of crisis?)

Back home to cut back on the oral intro, to allow for the longer clip.  Done and emailed off as backup if someone in Michigan has to read it for me. A quick Skype test with De Ce Rouseau at Eastern Michigan University. It works. Whew again. An experiment with Chris on Skype at her place and me at mine: 'Take the painting off the wall in the background,' she suggested, 'it looks like a huge whiteboard.'

A large dinner of omega-filled fish. Some lovely luck-wishing emails and calls. Help with getting the painting off the wall. Early night. Up at 5 a.m. to sweep the newly exposed cobwebs off the wall behind the painting and to sort out the necessary lights because it's now still dark at 7 a.m. To decide on clothes: 'Depending on your background wear what you are comfortable in - you know me simplicity all the way. I'd have my pj bottoms on and a teeshirt haha'  emailed my writing buddy. Wore the closest I have to a Patti Smith gig jacket, decorated with gifts from dear friends. Chris arrives right on schedule. Together, we lean into the laptop.

And then the presentation. Amazing to see people I'd only read about. Some technical hiccups. Some fabulous comments and questions that will inform my next draft, with more perhaps to come by email. And lovely to hear Chris' responses to questions about her process; she's going to write about it soon. Tiny regrets that we're so far away and missing out on the other symposium conversations, alongside intense pleasure that we made it across the world. Now, here's the original unedited intro.

Note: Our permissions to use Muriel Rukesyer's poems for this presentation do not extend to being able to share the filmed extracts and songs online.

Read more >>

Singing Muriel

This is where I've been. Getting ready for a Skype presentation of my play Throat of These Hours (a work-in-progress) to the Muriel Rukeyser Centenary Symposium at the Eastern Michigan University. Scary stuff. Have never filmed actors reading scenes from a play before (doing that tomorrow with some lovely help). Or given an intro and taken part in a Q & A by Skype (Saturday). Back here soonish. Answering your email soonish, too!

Women Directors at Cannes & Maïwenn's Polisse

The other day, I saw Maïwenn's Polisse at last and marvelled at her skill in writing and directing an absorbing multi-protagonist narrative, as well as acting in it. Polisse won the Prix de Jury at Cannes in 2011, a fine achievement from within the French industry, where women directors are as challenged as they are elsewhere in the world. And now it's time to start thinking about women at Cannes (15-26 May) again. This year, Jane Campion will head the Cinéfondation and Short Film Jury (the first woman to do so?) Steven Spielberg is the Jury's president. How many women have entered their short films and features? Who's advocating for their inclusion?

In the meantime, to continue my series on women directors at Cannes from last year (listed below with a couple of other posts from earlier years) here's a clip about Maïwenn's experience of Cannes and her big win. Made me smile!

Cannes 2010
You CANNES Not Be Serious!

Cannes 2011
Yes We CANNES Do It!

Cannes 2012
Director Destri Martino pre-Cannes
Destri Martino after Cannes, podcast
Director Zia Mandviwalla at Cannes
Cannes and the high stakes involved

Polisse trailer

Laura Thies – an inspiring German woman director

Josephine and Laura about to be unmasked

Many countries have their own crowd-funding sites now. But it seems that there's not a lot of cross-border traffic, except into and out of the States. Because I think that cross-border co-productions may be one path to more features by and about women, I want to learn more about women's features around the world. One way to learn is by following crowd-funding campaigns. So I was delighted to see this German clip from Laura Thies, made for Woods of Words, the second feature she'll direct. It enchanted me.



Laura, her writer Josephine Ehlert and their team are about to start a new crowd-funding campaign, so I asked Laura a few questions about the project and its context. Her energetic response includes a stunning term I hadn't heard before and can imagine using a lot : 'doom-loop'!

Zero Dark Thirty: The Director as Backing Singer?

A Wellington Sevens costume. Thanks, Stuff!

I didn't much want to go to Zero Dark Thirty. I scare easily at the movies and don't often watch war films or action films. I love thrillers though, and I'm waiting for a new thriller about the war against violence against women, an ongoing event in real time – on 14 February Eve Ensler's One Billion Rising is a turning point in that story.

But I'd followed some of the controversy about Zero Dark Thirty, read reports of what Kathryn Bigelow says about her film and watched her speak on various clips. And I'm very interested in issues around work that's hybrid, a mix of documentary and fiction (in New Zealand, Alyx Duncan's recent The Red House and two projects that are on their way, Leanne Pooley's Beyond the Edge about Sir Edmund Hillary's ascent of Everest in 1953 and Gaylene Preston's Hope and Wire series about the Christchurch earthquakes.) So when a beloved friend was willing to go to Zero Dark Thirty, someone I knew would hold my hand if I needed that, off I went.

I didn't need my hand held. The film didn't engage me enough on a visceral level. It's very 'talky' and uses the talk  and 'chapter headings' to move the story along, so I kept missing bits and became confused (as did my mate). There was no point at which I cared about the central character, played by Jessica Chastain. If a man had directed Zero Dark Thirty, I'd have shrugged, enjoyed the rest of the evening on Wellington's wild streets (it was a Rugby Sevens night and a lot of fun for an observer) and not given it another thought.

But because Kathryn Bigelow directed Zero Dark Thirty, I thought at length. Tweeted my interest in discussions and got a couple of responses. And kept thinking. I've come to two conclusions. One is that the film can be read as an art historically influenced statement about women and wars between religions and nation states. The other is that Kathryn Bigelow's statement is compromised by her role as Mark Boal's backing singer.

They might have completely forgotten us

Anna Keir Self Image (1981 silk screen on cotton 58x43.5) 

I. How women artists disappear from history

As Sarah Polley said the other day, “It’s really lonely being a female filmmaker, there really aren’t that many women doing this job.” If we can't connect to our women filmmaker histories, it's even lonelier. Women's histories disappear so quickly. We – and our intellectual and artistic achievements – get forgotten. Often because of lack of resources.

The Bitch Pack & The Bitch List

Today's The Day! The Bitch Pack, ‘changing women's representation on screen – starting with the written page’, has just announced the results of its first annual Bitch List (scripts with Brilliant, Intriguing, Creative, Tenacious Heroines). It's a tally of industry votes for scripts seen (but not yet produced) in 2012 that pass The Bechdel Test  Each script must have:

1. At least two [named] women in it

2. Who talk to each other

3. About something besides a man.

It's a fine occasion and complements the Bitch Pack’s award at Shriekfest, for a horror screenplay that passes the Bechdel Test. 

The Bitch Pack is not alone in its activism. The Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) diversity reports first exposed me to activism within that huge film industry based on the United States' west coast. Every two years, the reports examine trends in film and television employment and earnings and they continue to find that white men are given many more opportunities than women and minority writers. The WGAW has also established programmes that it hopes will effect change. Then I learned about the California-based long-haul work of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media, Miss Representation and various academic researchers. But in the last year, the momentum has quickened. More women in the industry have established initiatives to advance the interests of their colleagues. And I'm excited about them all.

Sundancing

Jane Campion's Top of The Lake

This week I read Ava DuVernay’s script for Middle of Nowhere, the feature for which she won Best Director in the US Competition at the Sundance Film Festival last year. Middle of Nowhere hasn’t reached New Zealand yet, but the elegant, powerful script touched my heart. It has an intriguing woman protagonist, a diverse group of women characters and can be read – like Sally Potter’s The Gold Diggers – as an extended metaphor for significant elements in women’s filmmaking.

It’s great to see Middle of Nowhere mentioned often as a contender for various categories at the Oscars. And now that Sundance has announced its 2013 US Dramatic Competition selection, and women directed eight of the sixteen films chosen – the highest ratio ever – it’s possible to imagine that next year they too will do well in awards.

The Sundance announcement hit the headlines and delighted many women. Change at last. But the reality is that the change is limited to the US Dramatic Competition. The women-directed percentages in the other Sundance narrative feature programs are very similar to the 18% in Martha Lauzen’s research into features screened at festivals in the United States between 2011 and 2012. (The proportion of women-directed documentary features is consistently higher than for narrative features, at Sundance and elsewhere.) Here are the Sundance figures:

Kathleen Gallagher – Poet, Playwright, Filmmaker

Kathleen Gallagher & Mike Single on camera, filming the Hurunui River – one of the four principal rivers in North Canterbury – for Water Whisperers/ Tangaroa 

Two things affected me last month. First, the proposal to increase irrigation in Canterbury, a New Zealand region with many major rivers which are depleted and degraded, probably best known outside New Zealand as the site of major earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. Second, Sandy-the-Frankenstorm that devastated Haiti – where there was also a major earthquake in 2010 – Jamaica and Cuba before it hit the United States. I felt deep sadness first, then a desire to help, so offered support where I could. And I thought it might also help to protest about the Canterbury irrigation, and about climate change, but wasn’t sure what was best to do. So I focused on what I had to do: an essay about New Zealand women directors, the garden.

The next draft of Throat of These Hours, my play about poet and activist Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980, ‘beautiful Muriel, mother of everyone’ according to fellow poet Anne Sexton ) and two women in a Wellington radio station, was waaay at the back of my mind – it’s ten days or so until I start up again with my writing buddy. But then I received an interview with Muriel that I’d wanted for ages. In the interview, from the New York Quarterly, she says

…a lot of things have killed and mutilated people I love. I will protest all my life. I am willing to. But I’m a person who makes, much more than a person who protests…and I have decided that wherever I protest from now on…I will make something – I will make poems, plant, feed children, build, but not ever protest without making something. I think the whole thing must be made again.

So I began to think about the relationship between protest and making, how they make a whole. And that took me back to Muriel’s book The Life of Poetry, where she writes about the fear of poetry, and its capacity to provide a place where all kinds of imagination can meet and change us, change the world. She saw her long prose works as footnotes to her poetry. And she was a film editor, too, who found that working with film was ‘a terribly good exercise for poetry although many [poets] have been seduced away to writing for film’. She also wrote that –

The work that a poem does is a transfer of human energy, and I think human energy may be defined as consciousness, the capacity to make change in existing conditions.

I began to understand the links between poetry and other ‘making’ and protest; and to think about people who work to make ‘the whole thing’ again, and for whom writing poems is part of that process. And came back to Canterbury poet and playwright Kathleen Gallagher, who makes films, most recently a trilogy – Earth Whisperers Papatuanuku, Water Whisperers Tangaroa, and Sky Whisperers Ranginui, and before that Healing Journeys He Oranga He Oranga about eleven cancer survivors and Tau Te Mauri Breath of Peace about how Aotearoa New Zealand became nuclear free and antiwar.

Kathleen Gallagher

Women directors. Globally.

After I completed my survey of New Zealand feature directors by gender, I wanted to put the New Zealand statistics alongside those from other countries. It's impossible to do this globally. The figures are unavailable for Lebanon, for instance. Lebanon has about the same population as New Zealand, but a very different cinema history and no state funding. And it's impossible to make exact comparisons between countries; the available figures often measure something different or differently.  In the United States, the volume of filmmaking of all kinds makes it impossible to establish a comprehensive picture. But here's some information which gives a general idea, for directors of narrative feature films only (Nicola Depuis' thesis on Irish women screenwriters offers related research on women in that country's industry).

Australia (five years to mid 2011) 18%

(theatrically released features only, probably most state-funded) via Screen Australia
Canada (2010) 16% (all state-funded) via Women in View
France (2010) 21% (state-funded, but with lower budgets than men-directed films) my research
New Zealand (2010) 16% (same percentage in both state-funded and not state-funded lists) my research
Norway (2010) 19% (from the Norwegian Film Institute database, not known if all state-funded)
Sweden (2010) 11% (19% of all state-funded films) via Swedish Film Institute
United States (2011-12) 18% (films from round the world shown at selected United States festivals) via Martha Lauzen at the Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film
United States (2010) 7% (250 top-grossing films, a steady decrease from 9% in 1998; 5% in 2011) via Martha Lauzen at the Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film. I better understood this especially low percentage and the decrease when I saw this graphic.

For the first time, I feel confident that although there are some local differences the percentage of women directors of narrative features is about the same everywhere in the world. Consider these figures in association with the percentage of films with women as protagonists (thank you, Miss Representation!), 16 percent, and it's obvious the problem is serious as well as complex.

But there's hope! By chance I received an email that shows that women who make decisions within the entertainment industry are not only aware of the problem but trying to analyse it and seek solutions. The notes helped me think and I hope they're helpful for you, too.

I don’t know where these women met, two middle-aged women, two Queen Bees. They live on different continents and they work in different sectors of the entertainment industry. Each is a major decision maker with a biiiiig budget. Was it an airport lounge? A conference? A film festival? An awards ceremony? A party? Anyway they were talking and the conversation turned to women directors. And one of them took notes which, much later, she sent to me. (I get many more emails from people I don’t know than I get comments here, even though there’s an ‘Anonymous’ option.) My understanding from the brief email  – this is a very busy woman – is that both participants in the conversation have a strong commitment to women who write and direct feature films. But I have no idea whether they want 'the loud trembling unspoken story of women can break through' or simply to ensure that more women are employed in the industry. The good news, however, is that these two appear not to be like those to whom Jodie Foster referred last year, when it was mentioned that many studio executives do, in fact, look like her — a 48-year-old white female veteran of the industry:

...the lists that come out of the female studio executives: guy, guy, guy, guy. Their job is to be as risk-averse as possible. They see female directors as a risk.

After I read the notes I asked to publish them without attribution. Here they are, with warm thanks to the women concerned, in three parts, slightly edited for clarity (I hope).


1. Women's commitment
Do women directors really want to make movies? Some women take time out for childrearing and then won’t make the commitment required.

2. Women often have specific needs – more intensive support, to be enabled, to have their confidence built
Each one requires a bespoke pathway and mentoring.  There’s a need to ‘curate individuals’.

3. At the moment the pathways don’t always work. [These are pathways established within 'the industry' presumably, because that's where these women are located, far away from processes like crowdfunding.]  What kinds of structures and pathways might work, eg short films to one-hour films?

I've thought a lot about these notes over the last few weeks, as I consider the motivations of the writer characters in my Muriel Rukeyser play, Throat of These Hours. My thoughts are below the jump if you want to read them. But I hope that when you look at the stats and read these Queen Bee notes, you'll have your own thoughts. And I'd love to hear what they are!

Amy Seimetz & Sun Don't Shine

Amy Seimetz

This weekend, there's a group of five films being shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A woman directed one, Amy Seimetz's Sun Don't Shine. The five films are nominated in the Best Film Not Playing a Theater Near You category at the Gotham Awards and were selected by the editors of Filmmaker magazine. None of the films have theatrical distribution and the winner will receive a one-week theatrical run next year. I looked at the trailer for Sun Don't Shine, and then tracked down a rich Anne Thompson two-part interview with Amy Seimetz. There's so much in these clips – a discussion of Amy Seimetz's move from acting (including Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture and Megan Griffiths' The Off Hours) to directing, of how she raised her funding, of why she doesn't engage with social media. (Incredibly, Sun Don't Shine hasn't even got a Facebook page or website I can find – has that affected its distribution chances?) Here's the Indiewire assessment of Sun Don't Shine.

Amy Seimetz's directorial debut is a vivid, suspenseful noir set against a sweltering backdrop of a barebones Florida crime saga. "Two-Lane Blacktop" by way of "Bonnie and Clyde," Seimetz's pulpy tale follows lovers Crystal and Leo (perennial character actress Kate Lyn Sheil and microbudget filmmaker Kentucker Audley) on the lam for mysterious reasons only vaguely made clear near the end of the first act, but even then much of the drama remains deeply ambiguous. Sheil's performance, all scowls and muffled shrieks, provides the ideal counterpoint to Audley's muted delivery. From the shock of its opening shot to the tension of its closing moments, "Sun Don't Shine" conveys mood so eloquently that it's easy to get lost in the proceedings without realizing that so little has happened. It's one of the most impressive debut features to come along in years. Criticwire grade: A-

 I'm really glad to learn about this writer/director and the way she works! An original? Yep! I think so.

Gaming Behavior, Gender & Screen Entertainment

Anita Sarkeesian is best known for her Feminist Frequency video series and blog that explore gender representations, myths and messages in film and other media. If you’ve seen a clip about the Bechdel Test in film (to pass the Bechdel Test a film needs to have two women having a conversation with each other about something other than men), it was probably Anita’s. This year, Anita set up a Kickstarter campaign to fund her video game research. She attracted intense harassment as a result, as well as intense support and many more donations than she expected. That process exposed the anti-woman culture in gaming.

Canada’s Global News has interviewed Anita about her experience and the wider epidemic of harassment women face in gaming spaces, with Grace from the website Fat, Ugly or Slutty which offers a space for people to share offensive online messages and laugh about them, Brenda Bailey Gershkovitch, founder of game studio Silicone Sisters Interactive and James Portnow from the gaming web show Extra Credits.

As I watched this excellent program, I kept thinking that gaming harassment and bullying amplify common but less ‘blatant’ patterns of behavior towards women and towards images of women in other contexts, including the film and television industries. It’s not hard to imagine that similar but more subtly expressed behaviors underlie investor resistance to providing resources for women to tell our stories on screen and affect the content of other screen-based entertainment. The courage, clarity and good humor of the programme participants seem inspirational for anyone who works imaginatively towards better representation of women and by women.

A New Zealand Problem, Or Two

Loren Taylor in Existence

This week, to write what I've agreed to write, I’ve had to come back to New Zealand gender statistics, after eighteen months of learning from countries’ figures, most of them supplied by others – France, Sweden, the United States (including films by women from around the world shown at festivals there), Australia and Canada. New Zealand has a much smaller population than any of these countries and I’ve been able to identify most of the features that have reached production, perhaps almost all. Most on the list have been released in cinemas or shown on television but some have been offered taxpayer production funding and are somewhere in the process between early pre-production and post-production. The list excludes feature documentaries but includes a group of hybrid works – Home By Christmas, Rain of the Children, Love Story, The Red House, Beyond the Edge, Giselle. I haven’t included films that New Zealand writers and directors filmed overseas and New Zealand taxpayers didn't fund at all, like Niki Caro’s North Country, Christine Jeff’s Sunshine Cleaning and Miro Bilbrough’s Being Venice. And there are some New Zealand women directors who aren’t represented on this list  – Jane Campion who recently came home to make a teleseries Top of the Lake and Alison Maclean who will return to Christchurch to shoot her adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s The Rehearsal, which she’s writing with Emily Perkins. And Christine Jeffs, about to direct Wonderful Tonight, a romantic comedy with Amanda Seyfried and Patrick Dempsey.

This list shows that we have a gender problem (or two). A related post, inspired by an unexpected email, will come soon and consider  a couple of possible new solutions.

Question Time: Women & Screenplays

Nicholl Fellow (2012) Nikole Beckwith onstage at a talkback

This week, I'm writing for someone else, about New Zealand women directors. It's a challenge to write 'academically' again and to ensure I'm up to date. Constantly, I find myself asking about details and I've returned to the statistics I developed a few years ago. If there are few women's features made, where in the process are women writers and directors choosing not to participate? What factors in the process hinder or support their participation? And what individuals or organisations are best placed to provide information about the essential details?  I've grown used to the New Zealand Film Commission's (NZFC) lack of gender statistics (in contrast to state funders in Sweden, Australia and, Canada). But The Black List and the New Zealand Writers Guild (NZWG) provide the latest examples of organisations who could help with some details but at the moment do not. The Black List is a commercial enterprise so it has no obligations except to its shareholders. But the NZWG is partially funded by the taxpayer and I think that, like the NZFC, it has a human rights obligation to engage with issues around gender and screenwriting. It's tiny compared to the Writers Guild of America West, which has an discrete Diversity Department  and puts out a Hollywood Writers Report every two years, but it could do more.

Celebrating Activism – Yay!

This year, with half the feature films funded by the New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC) directed by women, it's arguable that discrimination against women directors is in remission here. Though probably not far away. A bit like a herpes virus. Lurking forever within the body, grasping at opportunities to act. Globally, the good gender statistics now available from places like Australia, Sweden and the United States, show that for various reasons including discrimination, women direct far fewer feature films than men.  But the number of women directors of feature films is increasing, slowly. And more quickly in some places. Like the diverse Arab world and its diaspora. Two obvious examples are Nadine Labaki (Caramel, Where Do We Go Now?) and Saudi Arabian Haifaa Al Mansour whose Wadjda attracted a lot of attention at the Venice Film Festival, the first feature written and directed by a Saudi Arabian woman. But there are so many more. Just the other day, Ana Lily Amirpour posted about her A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night: "BIG BIG VERY BIG NEWS– A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is officially partnering with The Woodshed Horror Company! The production company of Elijah Wood, Daniel Noah and Josh C. Waller! Somebody pinch us!" This is how Variety explains the project, which had a marvellous Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign that even Margaret Atwood supported.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is an Iranian Western about vampires that will mark the feature debut of writer-director Ana Lily Amirpour. The film is described as a love story set in a fictitious Iranian ghost town reeking of death and loneliness, where a strange and jaded population is haunted by a lonesome vampire who preys upon the city's most depraved denizens. The mash-up of genre and culture will include a modern soundtrack of '60s-inspired Western guitar music and Iranian pop."When I first heard about Ana's project, a vampire Western noir, shot in black & white, in Farsi, and utilizing an entirely Iranian soundtrack, I was extremely excited. I then saw her proof-of-concept short and was convinced that this was a film that we'd be proud to be a part of bringing to life," Wood said.  

I can't wait for this film!

When I started work on my PhD, more than six years ago, women directors in New Zealand did not speak publicly about their experience of discrimination, nor about the work choices they had made and were making. And that inspired me to develop New Zealand statistics about the NZFC's development process, which showed where women directors were applying for funds for feature development and production (or not) and where they were being successful (or not). And I learned that it was useful to provide hard data because it helps to identify problems and to stimulate open discussion. But the problems are complex. And finding solutions is very difficult. And that's why the latest post in Women Directors – Navigating the Hollywood Boys' Club is so terrific. "Women Directors Fighting for Parity" is a careful analysis of why the Directors Guild of America's diversity programmes fail, written by Maria Giese, herself a member of the DGA. And she suggests some very useful strategies to resolve aspects of the problems that cause the statistics. My response when I read the article was delight. And I thought about other organisations that support diversity, like the Writers Guild and Women in Film & Television. Perhaps they could benefit from a similar analysis of their programmes, and consider Maria's alternative strategies.

From a distance, it seems that thoughtful, practitioner-based, activism is on the rise on the west coast of the United States and that the various organisations and individuals involved are beginning to link up. It's not a surprise to see that Maria's working with Heidi Honeycutt, from Viscera, another strong activist organisation.  As I mentioned the other day, Bitch Pack's The Bitch List, and the Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative are planning to work together. Women Directors – Navigating the Hollywood Boys' Club has connected up with Destri Martino's list of women directors. There's the Anonymous Production Assistant's blog, too, with the Anonymous Production Assistant being a Bitch Pack Advisory Board member. Collectively, all these initiatives and their alliances will enrich problem-solving processes and provide a powerful platform. It's very exciting and I salute their courage and imagination.

Catch Up

Muriel Rukeyser

I'm more of a writer than an activist at the moment. Last week I finished the first draft of my play about Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980), the poet and activist whose life, poems and other writings inspire me. It's set in a radio station in the present day and the two main characters are a radio host and her technician. Fellow poet Anne Sexton called Muriel Rukeyser 'beautiful Muriel, mother of everyone' and once I'd finished I could see the draft's connections to my long quest for a satisfying literary and artistic matrilineage.

The draft's now with a reader and then there will be more drafts. I have a pile of other work to finish before year's end. And I haven't had time to organise my spring garden. So this post's a catchup of alphabetically-ordered info that I wish I could write full posts on. Kind of like a magazine, to dip into and out of! And for the next little while I'm likely to post less regularly and more about my own work.

Viscera

Viscera is a visionary not-for-profit based in Los Angeles. Founded by Shannon Lark in 2007, its mission is to expand opportunities for female genre filmmakers and artists. Its range of activities is mind-boggling. I think it’s globally unique, and it provides an extraordinary model for other women to follow. There are the festivals: Viscera, which specialises in short horror films by women, Etheria, a fantasy and science fiction festival, and Full Throttle, for action films. And once Viscera selects a film for its own festivals, it works with partner festivals and events that film screened all over the world. It has teamed up with Hannah Forman to provide Women in Horror Recognition Month (every February). Viscera also offers educational programmes and critiques to people who submit films. And recently Viscera announced the Mistresses of Horror Alliance (MOHA), a membership-based service within which Viscera provides merchandise, networking, education, workshops, and an annual filmmaking grant to one MOHA filmmaker. The Viscera website is jam-packed with information, but I was delighted to check a few more details with Shannon.

Niam Itani (2) At Venice, & After

Niam in Venice

Niam Itani was the only woman filmmaker among the finalists in YouTube's Your Film Festival competition, and joined the other finalists at this year's Venice Film Festival, to pitch the idea which could win her $500,000 to make a feature film. When I interviewed her before she went to Venice, she promised to write about her Venice experience, and she has: here you are. Niam didn't win, but she had a great time! And is now busy working on her feature.

What kind of programme did the organisers arrange for you all? From the YouTube clip, it looked busy!
The program was busy before pitching day, I’d say it was well balanced to make sure we don’t get exhausted but still enjoy each other’s company and have our own time. We went on a sightseeing tour of Venice, which was an excellent idea. We also had several group dinners and cocktail receptions. These were great for networking and bonding. Then there was the pitching day, where pitching was our only task, and screening day which also included a reception.

You were nervous about pitching the project you created especially for the competition. How did the pitch go? Who did you pitch to?
The pitch was perfect, thanks to excessive rehearsals with my friend and one of the producing partners on my next feature film who joined me on the trip. We made sure to cover all aspects of the project while pitching (narrative, commercial, marketing, virality, etc…). When I pitched to Scott Free, Google, YouTube, and Michael Fassbender’s production company, they all said it was excellent and barely had any questions. I was happy because this was my best time pitching too!