By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

HOT DOCS GRINDS TO A HALT FOR CULTURE CUTS

Posted Thursday, May 3rd, 2012 - Comments Off on HOT DOCS GRINDS TO A HALT FOR CULTURE CUTS
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TORONTO, May 3, 2012 – – The Canadian documentary community is engaging in a symbolic moratorium during Hot Docs on Friday, May 4th at 12:30 pm to protest the Federal cuts to arts and culture in Canada.

Filmmakers, festival representatives, distributors, film students and documentary fans will gather for a one-hour demonstration at the corner of Charles Street and Queen’s Park (http://g.co/maps/cv67x), (in front of the Royal Ontario Museum stairs).

“We can’t pretend this is business as usual.  Our colleagues are losing their jobs and Canadians are losing access to a cherished cultural tradition.  Our documentaries are celebrated around the world — but they’re on life support in Canada,” says documentary producer Katie McKenna.

The Documentary Organization of Canada is reporting that 1,500 full-time documentary jobs have been lost in the past two years.  Canadian independent documentary production volume has decreased 30% since 2008, while CBC, CTV and Global Television have all reduced their documentary strands.

  • “The original press release incorrectly stated that Global TV has “reduced its documentary strands.”  In 2011, Global announced a new documentary strand, Close Up, and has further supported the documentary community through the Shaw Hot Docs Development and Production Funds as well as the Shaw Hot Docs TDF Best Canadian Pitch award. The organizers regret this error”.

“Hot Docs is supposed to be a week of celebration of the Canadian documentary industry. Instead, we are wondering how many Canadian films can continue to be made when this government continues to cut its funding to Canada’s cultural industries,” says documentary producer Sarah Spring.

The recently-announced funding cuts include:

– 10% cuts to CBC and NFB, including 18 full-time jobs lost in the CBC documentary unit

– A 50% cut to the Telefilm Rogers Theatrical Documentary program

– The closing of the NFB Cinérobothèque in Montreal and the Mediathèque in Toronto.

The documentary community is calling on Canadians to speak up about the cuts! Join us on Friday, and

– Tell Minister James Moore what they think of the cuts (on Twitter: @jamesmoore_org)

– Contact the CBC, CTV, Global TV to ask them to reinstate documentaries in prime time

– Upload a video about why you love documentary to https://www.facebook.com/WeLoveDocumentary

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon