Not that I wasn’t delighted about Dustin Lance Black’s and Sean Penn’s Milk wins at Oscar time, and not that I don’t hope Sigourney walks away with her well-deserved Emmy for Bobby — I’m just finally figuring out all we’re ever going to get is a pat on the head and a scratch behind the ear for being good little entertainers, and then locked in our cages at night while the real humans are allowed out to play.
But I digress, bitterly. This is really just a reminder that Prayers for Bobby is up for some winged gold:
We’re thinking about it, even though I hate rollercoasters (love speed, hate falling), ’cause it’s been forever since we’ve been to a non-political gay event, and ’cause Great America is all of 15 minutes away (Did I ever tell you I worked there as a teen, when it was owned by the Marriott Corp., and I didn’t know any better? Ask me sometime to tell you what it was like for a closeted 16-year-old to work Gay Night at the park, circa 1978)…
We’ve always thought so. I did a lot of private muttering about wishing Milk had been released just a few short weeks earlier, and now, having seen the film, I know it had immeasurable potential for tipping the scales in our balance in a way nothing else could. While I noticed a few teary eyes in the packed-house audience — and while I was certainly moved by many moments in the film — there was only one time the tears flowed freely for me: when word came down that the Briggs Initiative had been defeated. The joy on the screen was palpable, and contagious — but what made me cry was knowing that this this joy, this relief, was lost to us on November 4th.
That said, here’s what Gus Van Sant has to say about his conscious decision to hold back the release of Milk until after the election:
Van Sant has stated that he considered releasing the movie before the election but felt that the issues it addressed were about “more than just one proposition” and that the producers had done enough for the cause by previewing the movie before the vote. “The end decision was not to have the film speaking directly to the election,” he told Filmmaker magazine, “because if it was seen to be just about the election that might take away its chance of having a life after the election.”
Gus, you couldn’t be more wrong — or more selfish.
To the first part of your answer: Proposition 8 was not “just one proposition.” Defeating Proposition 8 was it, Gus, the whole enchilada. With marriage, we have it all. State-recognized marriage confers only a fraction of federally-recognized marriage, but the right to marry in California was the anchor for the nationwide marriage equality movement. Why do you think equality proponents everywhere wanted to maintain our newfound marriage right so badly — and the anti-gays wanted to stop it so badly?
“One proposition” would be Arkansas’ adoption ban — or any other kinship-related issue that would be completely moot if we had full, legal marriage, under which adoption, inheritance rights, taxation, and a host of other single issues would be taken care of in one fell swoop.
To marginalize marriage as “just one proposition” is astoundingly shortsighted.
The second part of your answer, “if [Milk] was seen to be just about the election that might take away its chance of having a life after the election,” smacks of self-interest and plain greed. What was more important to you, Gus — making a change in the world, or making sure your financial interest in a movie was protected?
Not that I think for one minute that you are correct in your assumption that associating Milk with the Proposition 8 battle would have diminished interest in — or monetary returns for — the film (on the contrary, I believe momentum would have been even greater if you had moved up the release), but that’s beside the point. The real question is: Do you, or did you ever, believe in the message of Harvey Milk, or did you make this film just for the money?
Curiously, the interview linked by the Guardian ends:
Van Sant: We decided to straddle the election, to have the opening affect the election and the release be after the election.
Q: That sort of fits Harvey Milk himself, who claimed that his election was about him but also about the larger movement of gay rights.
Van Sant: You could look at it that way. But I think that if Harvey was the decision maker, he would want the film to affect the election.
If you believe that, Gus, then why didn’t you do what Harvey would have done?
As for the rest of us, The Guardian asks:
Was he right? Or could the press attention that Milk received have tipped the vote in the anti-prop-8 camp’s favour had it arrived before 4 November? Did that camp have enough support from Hollywood already? And was it Van Sant’s responsibility as a politicised film-maker to have a greater consideration for real events when negotiating the release of his film?
“Causecast sat down with James Franco, Josh Brolin and Emile Hirsch to talk about their new film, Milk, starring Sean Penn and directed by Gus Van Sant.”
This is an interview with Cleve Jones from March, 2008, at San Francisco City Hall the Sunday the 1978 Gay Freedom Day was re-created for Milk. Everything Cleve has to say is worth listening to, particularly his message to young gay people today — what you missed, good and bad, during the revolutionary era of the fight for equality in the 1970s; he even mentions small, simple things, like the warm look of recognition between gay and lesbian strangers on the street (something I remember very fondly, but haven’t seen in many years).
But what I find most striking, and painfully ironic, comes as the video inches toward the 7:00 mark:
Two months before the California Supreme Court handed down its ruling recognizing the fundamental constitutional right of same-sex couples to marry legally, and well before any of us knew Proposition 8 would be on the ballot in November, let alone that our newfound freedom would be ripped away from us, Cleve says:
“History is full of examples where people who thought they were free woke up one morning and discovered they weren’t free, and they had to fight, or die. And I think it is not out of the realm of possibility that we will face that again.”
Come on, ‘fess up: Which one of you radical homosexual fascist anarchist rioters hacked NewsMax.com?
OK, then which one of you satanic radical homosexual baby-eaters sacrificed a puppy in order to possess the immortal soul of The Online Right-Wing Rag That Wishes All Gays Would Be Consumed By Festering Boils And Die A Slow, Painful Death?
We just can’t register the idea that NewsMax.com published a positive review of Milk, much less had nice things to say about Harvey himself, much less praised that evil, left-wing devil Sean Penn for his performance.
But it did, Blanche, it did. And while we won’t link to it — it’s a syndicated AP piece — the fact remains that NewsMax published it.
In case you can’t guess, we agree with 99% of the comments.
Nice try, Bob, but you leave us with nothing but disgust and an even stronger reserve never to patronize the Cinemark chain again — nor to be associated with a Vichy Faggot like you.
You’re an embarrassment, Bob, to LGBTs and to yourself. May you someday cultivate a sense of self-respect, which you’ve obviously traded for that big paycheck you’re getting to be Cinemark’s token House Negro.
Dianne Feinstein is not sure she’ll ever be able to watch the movie “Milk,” even though she’s in it.
There is 1978 footage of a stricken Feinstein in the opening minutes of the new Gus Van Sant biopic of Harvey Milk, her colleague on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the first openly gay elected official in American history. …
“I was the one who found his body,” the California senator told me Friday, on route from the airport to her home in San Francisco. “To get a pulse, I put my finger in a bullet hole. It was a terrible, terrible time in the city’s history.”
The movie, chronicling the rancorous California fight of gay activists against church-backed forces in the ’70s to prevent discrimination against gays, is opening amid a rancorous California fight of gay activists against church-backed forces to prevent discrimination against gays. …
I asked Senator Feinstein, who became mayor after the tragedy, if she would see the movie.
“It’s very painful for me,” she replied. “It took me seven years before I could sit in George Moscone’s chair. It took me a long time to talk about it. I was only recently able to talk about it.” …
The piece is worth reading in full, for Feinstein’s (and Jerry Brown’s) takes on Prop 8 and the validity of existing marriages (“You can’t redact it,” she said. “You can’t blot it out. It’s so intrinsic to the Constitution that you cannot remove it by a vote of the people”), but most of all for DiFi’s own attitude toward queers, which may have changed for the better:
“I think as more and more people have gay friends, gay associations, see gay heroism, that their views change.” …
“I think people are beginning to look at it differently, I know it’s happened for me,” Feinstein said of gay marriage. “I started out not supporting it. The longer I’ve lived, the more I’ve seen the happiness of people, the stability that these commitments bring to a life. Many adopted children who would have ended up in foster care now have good solid homes and are brought up learning the difference between right and wrong. It’s a very positive thing.”
That — as well as her better-late-than-never TV ad for No On 8 — is a far cry from 2004, when she jumped on the blame-the-gays (and blame-Gavin-Newsom) bandwagon for the re-selection of George W. Bush (earning her a well-deserved Pink Brick). But we’re not quite ready to forgive and forget just yet. DiFi has a lot to make up for to LGBTs. Left in SF sums it up:
While all agree that she is not an enemy to the LGBT movement and has been supportive on some issues, Joey Cain, President of the LGBT Pride Committee, explained that her comments right after the Presidential election about same sex marriage infuriated many in the LGBT community. She essentially blamed the re-election of George Bush on same sex marriage and said, progress on the gay marriage front “has been too much, too fast, too soon.”
These comments are consistent with prior statements and actions she has made over the years. Recently, she has refused to support legislation that would protect immigrant same sex couples. The Permanent Partners Immigration Act introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) would protected couples from separation. Estimates are that 10,000 couples would benefit.
In the past, she vetoed the first domestic partners legislation which was introduced by Harry Britt in the 80s. …
Nevertheless, it sounds like Senator Feinstein may indeed be experiencing a small glimmer of enlightenment late in life, as least where us ‘mos are concerned — or it could be simply that she’s shoring (or whoring) up LGBT support for her likely 2010 gubernatorial run. Either way, we’re just glad to hear her say what she’s saying right now. We’re not foolish enough to trust that she’ll experience as much remorse about all the rest of her past transgressions, but we’re glad about this one small thing (which isn’t such a small thing when it’s your future on the line).
In any case, do read the rest of Dowd’s piece — it’s quite good, and ends with a short exchange between Dowd and Larry Kramer, last of the great gay activists.
Thursday, December 4, 2008 Reception: 6:00 - 7:30 pm Film Screening: 7:30 pm
Camera 7 Theater at the Pruneyard 1875 S. Bascom Avenue (Suite 100, in the Pruneyard) Campbell, CA 95008
Come early and join us for our reception before the screening from 6:00 to 7:30 pm and then join us at 7:30 pm in the theater for the premiere.
Free parking is available.
Tickets are $25.00 with a limit of 300.
All of the proceeds from this event go to benefit The Health Trust AIDS Services.
The Health Trust is the largest provider of services to Santa Clara County residents with HIV/AIDS and empowers patients and families to solve their day to day needs.
The Health Trust AIDS Services provides case management to assist with managing medication; communicating with medical and social service providers; negotiating complex systems such as Social Security and health insurance; finding emotional support; mental health and substance abuse treatment referrals; and referrals to other services in the community. The Health Trust AIDS Services also provides hot meal delivery, food baskets, homecare, and rental subsidies and support services to help residents find and stay in affordable housing.
In addition to these services, The Neil A. Christie Living Center, located in the heart of San Jose, offers a safe and accessible place for people living with HIV/AIDS and others to meet and learn from each other as well as meet with service providers. Today, more than 800 HIV/AIDS patients rely on The Health Trust’s services, and the number of people continues to grow.
I just purchased three tickets (Mom is coming with us!), which is fast and painless. There are still plenty of tickets available, but there won’t be for long. So hurry up and get yours, South Bayers! (And let us know if you’re going to be there — we’d love to meet you! Well, we’d love to meet our compadres and comadres, that is.)
I think it’s a great piece, anyway. Honestly, I’m so, like, “What’s the point anymore?”, I almost don’t give a damn right now whether I ever see the film or not; I think it would be more depressing than anything, seeing as how hardly anything has changed at all since the day Harvey was shot. (And for what? Did Harvey die in vain? Seems so to me.)
Anyway, I think it’s a good article — at least, it’s long, and it’s got pictures:
The guests came to the Castro Theatre on Tuesday dressed in Levi’s and designer dresses, ’70s-chic velvet jackets and drag-queen heels and glitter. It looked like a glamorous early start on Halloween, but actually it was a Hollywood affair complete with a red carpet and a who’s-who invitation list. …
History came back home to where it started three decades ago. The Castro Theatre vibrated with gay rights past and present. As the creators and stars of the film and local politicians ran the red-carpet press gantlet, a throng of people across the street waved “Vote No on Prop. 8″ signs and shouted at every passing car that honked. The measure will eliminate the right to same-sex marriage in California if it passes next week.
“Harvey Milk gave his life for the struggle for human rights,” said San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris. “It’s a continuing battle that’s not over.”
State Assemblyman Mark Leno, sporting a “Harvey Milk for Assembly” button on his lapel, connected “the exciting and tumultuous time” of Milk’s gay rights activism to the “ill-conceived measure facing voters on the ballot next week.” …
The feature, directed by Gus Van Sant, opens in theaters Nov. 26. [Sean] Penn, a Marin County resident, plays the title role in a richly textured performance sure to evoke visceral memories of one of the first openly gay people to win major elective office in the country. …
The film tells its story in fatefully somber, operatically enhanced flashback, with Milk speaking into a tape recorder in eerie anticipation of his possible assassination. …
Tuesday’s premiere was a heady mingling of then-and-now. Various real-life participants in Milk’s career showed up, along with the actors who portray them onscreen. Milk confidant Cleve Jones, who later founded the NAMES project AIDS Memorial Quilt, was there. His onscreen embodiment, “Into the Wild” star Emile Hirsch, was expected. Photographer Danny Nicoletta, doubled by Lucas Grabeel in the movie, attended.
In an interview on Monday, Milk’s campaign manager Anne Kronenberg, who is now a San Francisco public heath administrator, said, “I just saw the movie yesterday, and I still haven’t recovered from it. Gus (Van Sant) and the production team caught the era exactly. It’s very accurate. What really comes across is that feeling of compatriots and being family that we felt.” …
The screening was a benefit for the Hetrick Martin Institute, home of Harvey Milk High School; Larkin Street Youth Services; the Point Foundation; and the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center. Tickets ran from $50 for the screening to $15,000 for 12 prime seats at the movie and a post-premiere dinner and party at City Hall. …
Location shooting for “Milk” began on Castro Street in January. Street signs and window displays were refashioned to appear as they did at the time. The Castro Theatre marquee was backdated to its colored-confetti look of the 1970s. Filming wrapped in March, shortly after a big crowd scene was shot on the steps of City Hall. …
On Tuesday, back in a Castro neighborhood that seemed to pulse with his memory 30 years later on a cool October night, many in the crowd seemed ready to sign on for the cause all over again.
Much more at the link.
Next up, videos:
Mini-documentary (with lots of No On 8 coverage, plus Cindy Sheehan, Tom Ammiano, Medea Benjamin, Mark Leno, Gavin Newsom, and other familiar faces) in the Castro, before and after the premiere:
Quick (11-second) clip of crowd across from the Castro, chanting “No on 8!”
“I think there’s gonna be riots if this thing passes.”
— Cleve Jones on the Briggs Initiative, 1978
I’m kind of amazed at myself, and not in a good way.
It just dawned on me that it’s very, very strange that, in the five months since the California Supreme Court decision, and with all the feces flung at us by the forces of anti-equality, I don’t think I’ve once mentioned the Briggs Initiative.
Californians of a certain age will remember Briggs, a.k.a. Proposition 6, all too well. I was a junior in high school, and among my electives was Film Analysis, and—
Before I go on, and before the haters start screaming, “See?! You were indoctrinated in school!” let’s get one thing straight: I wasn’t. I’m one of those ReaLesbians® who knew I was queer as a three-dollar bill before I knew there was word for it, or could even speak it. At the time of my little story here, I’d already been shagging my steady girlfriend for months — an impossibly tall, impossibly beautiful blonde who looked a lot like Cameron Diaz (and who, I’ll have you know, was a straight-A grind, a devout, completely virginal Christian who still went to Maranatha camp every summer until she left for college, and who taught me what it was all about, not the other way around).
That said…
Film Analysis was a little less interesting than I’d hoped; our teacher was extremely knowledgeable and loved his subject, but, frankly, he had the personality of a houseplant.
Things changed one day when he told us he had something to talk to us about besides the significance of the Battleship Potemkin steps scene. He told us about Proposition 6, which proposed to bar gay men and lesbians from teaching in California schools — and, in fact, proposed to sack any teacher for saying anything remotely positive about homosexuality.
He told us about it every day, in fact, until Election Day, 1978 — I don’t think we once looked at another film.
I’m glad he did. I got a civics lesson I never forgot.
Mr. Houseplant didn’t try to sway us one way or the other on the issue (and why try anyway, as we were all too young to vote), but brought the details of the latest developments to class each day for discussion. He never got into the issue of homosexuality itself — whether it was “right” or “wrong” — his take was solely as a teacher, and as an American deeply concerned by what amounted to a modern-day McCarthy witch hunt. The message I took away — and have held close to my heart every single day for the past thirty years — was: If they can do it to one group, they can do it to any group.
And that was wrong.
Was he gay? I have no idea. But does it matter? Mr. Houseplant (I swear to you, I forgot his name years ago, ‘though not his lessons) taught me that discrimination in any form was wrong. Such a simple lesson it was, but invaluable, especially for a 16-year-old who would rather be doing anything besides sitting in a classroom.
Considering the stunning parallels between the witch-hunting Briggs Initiative and the current Anti-Marriage Initiative, Proposition 8, I’m truly amazed at myself that I haven’t gone into this before. I’m even more amazed when I consider the freezing-cold nights (and one lovely Sunday) Buffy and I spent as extras in Milk (more about that shortly; the world premiere was last night), and the impact of the wave of anti-gay amendments in addition to Briggs had on the era we were re-creating.
While Buffy was certainly already aware of Harvey Milk, she was just a little tyke when all this was going on, and, raised on the East Coast, was even further removed from the revolution taking place in San Francisco in the 1970s. Being in Milk gave her a nearly firsthand experience of the events of 1978. Just being in the Castro, made over to look as it did in the days my friends and I would hang out there on weekends as teenagers, brought up a lot of memories I hadn’t thought about in decades, which I compulsively passed along to Buffy as soon as they entered my mind. “Harvey’s, that used to be The Elephant Walk… and up across the street, there was Headquarters, which was strictly men — but they didn’t mind if lesbians came in… Lesbian territory was the Mission — you could have dinner at the vegetarian Artemis Café, where there was usually live music, and then head over to Amelia’s, which had a gorgeous, huge, wooden bar downstairs, and great dancing upstairs… I learned from one of Amelia’s bartenders that coffee filters work even better than newspaper when you’re cleaning glass… Of course, Artemis and Amelia’s have been gone for years, so the lesbians sort of took over the Café San Marcos — that’s the club you see at the corner of Market — which is just called the Café now…”
And on and on Chatty Cathy would go.
But the real lessons came from other extras, as we chatted to pass time between takes. There was the 70-year-old gay man who had dug his motorcycle jacket out of mothballs (and still cut a dashing, sexy look), a true survivor of his generation, who had a front-row seat at the White Night Riots. There was the retired schoolteacher, who sported the “NO ON 6″ button she had kept since 1978. There were many others.
Re-living those days, even if it was all pretend, was bittersweet — but the one thing I didn’t know was how I would see those days anew, through Buffy’s eyes. In February — with no inkling that just three months later we would face the fight of our lives — Buffy reflected after the candlelight march we had re-enacted two nights earlier:
There is still the work left unfinished in the wake of Milk’s death. As I’d mentioned previously it seems despite the passage of 30 years so little has been accomplished. Back then some Gay Rights legislation had been passed only to be met with a backlash by RRRW activists who enacted their own laws. History has been repeating itself with George W. Bush and his “Family Values” crowd. Every attempt we make to get LGBT rights legislation passed is met with equal opposition from them, and they work across the nation to put in place laws that will restrict our human rights in every way possible.
We must fight harder than ever before to ensure that Harvey Milk’s death was not in vain. To ensure that his vision for LGBT equality comes to pass. If it means taking to the streets over and over again we must do it. Bigotry and narrow-mindedness cannot — must not — be allowed to prevail.
That’s practically prescient.
Last night, Buffy and I were talking about violence against No On 8 supporters, and how my mom is worrying that I’ll get hurt — but how I can’t not be on the streets Election Day. Still, I told Buffy, I feel like I could have done more. She disagreed with me, telling me I’ve gone above and beyond the call — and while Buffy’s opinion is more important to me than anyone else’s, I still feel I could have done more… can do more, even with just six short days to go before November 4th.
In failing to recount the Briggs milestone, I feel I’ve missed a teaching opportunity — a lesson in Santayana’s Aphorism on Repetitive Consequences (”Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it”).
With everything else in front of me — in addition to contributing to two marriage projects, I’m working on Part 3 of my “Salute to Traditional Marriage” video series (see Part 1 here and Part 2 here) — I don’t know how much time I can devote to taking us all back to the ugly days of Briggs, and the devastating assassinations of Harvey Milk and George Moscone. But I’ll start you out with the Edge article by Roger Brigham that inspired this post in the first place:
As Yogi Berra so memorably said, it’s deja vu all over again. In this case, it’s specifically 1978 all over again in California.
Yes, right wing extremists are describing their efforts to abolish marriage rights for queers in terms of Armageddon. But longtime Californians need only reach into recent history to get a sense of perspective on the importance of next Tuesday’s vote on state Proposition 8.
Political leaders view this referendum on gay marriage as a kind of Briggs Initiative revisited. As the most recent high-profile politician to weigh in on the matter, Sen. Diane Feinstein stars in the latest TV ad urging folks to vote “No.” Feinstein, by the way, was a rising local politician in San Francisco City Hall when the Briggs Initiative was defeated and shot into national prominence when she assumed the mayoralty on the assassination of Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone.
The parallels between this year’s Prop 8 and 1978’s Briggs Initiative “resonate because we are yet again at a watershed moment,” commented Kate Kendall, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and a member of the No On 8 campaign. “When ’Briggs’ was defeated, it changed the landscape in the entire country for LGBT people. If we defeat Prop 8, clearly we’re in a different place than we were 30 years ago.”
The Briggs Initiative, more properly known as California Proposition 6, was pushed onto the 1978 ballot by a prominent Orange County conservative gadfly, John Briggs, who depended on it as part of his futile effort to rise from the State Senate to the governor’s mansion.
His amendment would have allowed the firing of teachers for ever mentioning anything positive about homosexuals. It ended up galvanizing the LGBT community; after polls showed it leading by huge margins, it ended up losing in a landslide — after it was denounced by former Gov. Ronald Reagan, no less.
“Defeating the Briggs Initiative created opportunities that have nothing to do with teachers in school, and Proposition 8 would would affect things that have nothing to do with marriage,” Kendall said. “There was not an issue that the defeat of Briggs did not enhance when it came for greater inclusion.” …
More at the link.
(And here’s a little something to get you fired up: Former Log Cabin head, and now head of the Gill Action Fund, Patrick Guerriero offered this tantalizing glimpse into the very-near future: “‘Even though we’re optimistic,’ said Guerriero, ‘we are about to see something unleashed by the other side.’ As to what the No On Prop 8 plans in response, organizers were close-mouthed. ‘It’s going to be exciting and aggressive.’”)
As for Briggs vis-à-vis Proposition 8, I can’t think of any better resource for setting the stage than the Harvey Milk Pages at the venerable Uncle Donald’s Castro Street, followed by the excellent CAMP Rehoboth article, “PAST Out: What was the Briggs Initiative?.”
If you weren’t around in 1978, read it. And if you were, read it anyway — and then stop for just a moment, pull aside one of our youth, and share our history. You will add a richness, a dimension, a passing of our legacy that may be the one thing to push one young person into action.
We — you and I of a certain age — aren’t going to be around forever, you know. If we don’t help our younger brothers and sisters understand exactly what it is they are fighting for, how can we expect them to fight at all?
Oh, and one more thing about the Briggs Initiative: About a week before the election, polls showed Prop 6 passing, by 61% to 31%.
IFP also announces initiative with Hetrick-Martin Institute, home of the Harvey Milk HS, to support emerging LGBT filmmakers
NEW YORK — September 10, 2008 — In recognition of his pioneering career which has helped break down the barriers between independent and mainstream film, IFP announced today that director Gus Van Sant will be presented with a Gotham Awards Tribute at the 18th Annual Gotham Awards on Tuesday, December 2, in New York.
Presented by IFP, the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers, the Gotham Awards is one of the leading awards for independent film and the first major honors of the film awards season. The awards provide critical early recognition for worthy independent films, such as past winners Juno (2007), Half Nelson (2006), and Junebug (2005), all of which went on to earn numerous awards and Oscar® nominations for their stars Ellen Page, Ryan Gosling, and Amy Adams, respectively.
This year, Van Sant has directed the highly anticipated film Milk, about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to major public office in the United States. Starring Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, Diego Luna, and James Franco, the film will be released by Focus Features in select cities on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 and then expand in December.
In recognition of Van Sant’s fearlessness in using film to explore LGBT issues, IFP announced a new initiative aimed at inspiring the next generation of LGBT filmmakers. IFP is teaming with the The Hetrick-Martin Institute, home of the Harvey Milk High School in New York City. IFP, courtesy of Deloitte Financial Services LLP, is donating 45 video cameras to the school. IFP hopes to work with the producers of NewFest, The New York LGBT Film Festival, to create a series of training and mentoring sessions. Select works by youth members from The Hetrick-Martin Institute and students from Harvey Milk School will be invited to screen during the next edition of NewFest (June 4 - 14, 2009). Additionally, school administrators and students will be on hand for a Q&A following a special screening of The Times of Harvey Milk, Rob Epstein’s Academy Award-winning 1984 documentary that received early support from IFP. The documentary will be screened as part of To Save and Protect: The 6th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation on Thursday, November 6th.
As part of its tribute to Van Sant, IFP will also team with the Museum of Modern Art to present a public screening of Milk at the Museum on Wednesday, December 3rd.
“Gus is that rare director who has achieved a steady balance between his independent roots and mainstream filmmaking, excelling at both while continuing to push the envelope with the same boundless creativity, curiosity, and passion on display in his earliest films,” said Michelle Byrd, executive director of IFP.
Van Sant first earned critical acclaim with his 1985 feature film debut, Mala Noche, which won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for Best Independent/Experimental Film. Since then, he has directed some of the most acclaimed independent films of the past two decades, including Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, To Die For, Elephant, and Paranoid Park. In 1998, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director for Good Will Hunting, which received eight other Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. His major studio credits include Finding Forrester and a controversial shot-for-shot remake of Psycho.
IFP announced last month that Penélope Cruz will also receive a Gotham Awards Tribute. Additional honorees will be announced in the coming weeks.
Nominees for the 18th Annual Gotham Awards will be announced on October 20, 2008, and winners will be honored at a star-studded ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street on December 2nd. Submissions are now being accepted in five of the six competitive categories, including: Best Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Actor, Breakthrough Director and Best Ensemble Cast. Applications are available at http://gotham.ifp.org. The deadline for submissions is 5pm EST on Monday, September 22, 2008.
Sponsors of the 18th Annual Gotham Awards include Premiere sponsors The New York Times and Nokia and Presenting sponsors A Diamond is Forever and Stella Artois. Additionally, the awards will be promoted nationally in an eight-page special advertising section in The New York Times this November.
About IFP
After debuting with a program in the 1979 New York Film Festival, the nonprofit IFP has evolved into the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers, and also the premier advocate for them. Since its start, IFP has supported the production of 7,000 films and provided resources to more than 20,000 filmmakers–voices that otherwise might not have been heard. IFP believes that independent films enrich the universal language of cinema, seeding the global culture with new ideas, kindling awareness, and fostering activism. The organization has fostered early work by leading filmmakers including Charles Burnett, Edward Burns, Jim Jarmusch, Barbara Kopple, Michael Moore, Mira Nair, and Kevin Smith. For more information: www.ifp.org.
About the Gotham Awards
The Gotham Awards, selected by distinguished juries and presented in New York City, a home of independent film, are the first honors of the film awards season. This public showcase honors the filmmaking community, expands the audience for independent films, and supports the work that IFP does behind the scenes throughout the year to bring such films to fruition.
About The Hetrick-Martin Institute
The Hetrick-Martin Institute, Home of the Harvey Milk High School, believes all young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential. Hetrick- Martin creates this environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth between the ages of 12 and 21 and their families. Through a comprehensive package of direct services and referrals, Hetrick-Martin seeks to foster healthy youth development. Hetrick-Martin’s staff promotes excellence in the delivery of youth services and uses its expertise to create innovative programs that other organizations may use as models. For more info: http://www.hmi.org
Not that I wasn’t delighted about Dustin Lance Black’s and Sean Penn’s Milk wins at Oscar time, and not that I don’t hope Sigourney walks away with her well-deserved Emmy for Bobby — I’m just finally figuring out all we’re ever going to get is a pat on the head and a scratch behind the ear for being good little entertainers, and then locked in our cages at night while the real humans are allowed out to play.
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