Editor | Peter Bowen
Subscribe RSSGregg Araki: "Don't Slam Sundance"
Posted January 14, 2009
In a piece "Don't Slam Sundance," in the February issue of The Advocate, director Gregg Araki speaks eloquently about the fight against Prop 8 and the short-sightedness of a boycott of the Sundance Film Festival. He writes:
But more important, a Sundance boycott would end up being a profound disservice to the gay civil rights movement as a whole. I don’t think anyone can deny that visibility is a crucial aspect of our struggle for equality. And Sundance, with its mission to champion diversity, has always been especially supportive of LGBT films and filmmakers. My film The Living End, Todd Haynes’sPoison, Tom Kalin’s Swoon, Rose Troche’s Go Fish, Jim Fall’s Trick, and many, many more all had their premieres at Sundance. And the festival is not just about the snow, crowds, and agents running around schmoozing on cell phones. It’s also about the critical mass of media covering the event, which makes it a place where films and filmmakers can be discovered—so their voices are actually heard amid the miasma of popular culture. I’ve often said that the New Queer Cinema movement of the early 1990s wouldn’t have existed without the media writing about it—and Sundance is what brought those films, filmmakers, and journalists together in the first place.
The World's End
We Steal Secrets
Closed Circuit
The Deep
The Place Beyond The Pines
Greetings from Tim Buckley
Admission
Promised Land
Anna Karenina
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Brokeback Mountain
Lost in Translation
Pride & Prejudice
The Pianist
Gosford Park