April 2003

From our billboard last year we were invited on a few conservative radio talk shows, which really surprised us,” says the Käthe Kollwitz of the Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous feminist arts agitation group. “But we learned something really interesting—the only thing ultra-conservatives hate more than feminism is the film industry! So they’re our new best friends!”

What is Film Movement?

What do a former president of the Screen Actors Guild, the host of a long-running Harlem public access show, vice presidents at Fox and CBS, and Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell have in common?

For almost every independent film its first exhibition space will be a festival screening room.

There is a tremendous and silent battle being fought these days, the effects of which could create a culture (locally, nationally, and globally) that is completely beholden to the media giants, even more so than the present.

In her review of Phil Kaufman’s 1978 remake of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, legendary film critic Pauline Kael wrote, “The story is set in San Francisco, which is the ideally right setting, because of the city’s traditional hospitality to artists and eccentrics.” This hospitality extends to movie venues. With its wealth of alternative screening spaces, San Francisco is one of the most welcoming cities in the country for non-Hollywood film.

Dear Doc Doctor: I have a fifteen minute cut of a one-hour documentary, and the editor and I are not sure about the main storyline and characters. Should I have a test screening? How many should I have?