Film Organizations

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in January, director David Butler and his motley film crew set up shop in a cavernous yellow brick building on Eastern Avenue in Baltimore’s Little Italy. The team, known collectively as Bargain Basement Films, started straggling in at about 7 a.m.

In 1975, when a small group of energetic filmmakers convened the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers in their living rooms and makeshift offices, the word “independent” didn’t yet conjure up a world of arthouses, busy film festival circuits, and documentary filmmakers with household names.

I first became aware of AIVF when Martha Gever was editor of The Independent. I marveled at this national organization that put out each month a magazine chock full of weighty, intellectual and critical articles on film and video.

What happened at AIVF over the last 30 years?

In 1988, 19-year-old Joanna Katz and her friend were abducted at gunpoint by five men who took turns raping, beating, and torturing them. Joanna managed to escape and later testified in the trials that led to the sentencing of all five men to 30 to 35 years in prison.

In the heart of San Francisco’s Japantown at the Radisson Miyako Hotel, a roomful of filmmakers and community activists celebrated the 25th anniversary of a not-for-profit organization that funds, exhibits, and distributes Asian Pacific American film.

On a Monday afternoon last September, IFP Executive Director Michelle Byrd sat on a patch of industrial carpet by some pay phones outside a rest room in the Puck Building in downtown Manhattan. She was dressed in a smart black suit, and her cell phone buzzed frequently from the confines of her bag. Visitors to the bathroom brushed past her, and some were clearly surprised to find her in this odd spot. She was, after all, the doyenne of IFP’s annual Market, the industry event being held upstairs. “You of all people should have a chair!” exclaimed one woman.

Written by? Created by? Screenplay by?

Everything you need to know about Bob Berney’s taste in movies can be summed up by one simple fact: growing up, his favorite film was Stanley Kubrick’s seminal sci-fi head-trip 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Of course, like most of us, he also had a soft spot for more, let’s say, lowbrow fare.

Will Keenan has done some crazy things to promote movies. He’s been hit by a car, threatened self-immolation, and climbed a water tower only to get busted on the 6 o’clock news. Keenan even once dove from a third-floor balcony into a pool. But what he’s doing these days to promote movies is, by his standards, far scarier than any rapidly approaching front bumper or a 50-foot free fall. These days, it’s all about spreadsheets, managing interns, and getting to the office by 9 am.