12/04/2008
Sundance to Screen in Cinemark But Offer Alternatives
The Sundance Film Festival announced its line-up for 2009. They also discussed how the festival plans to deal with boycott threats and objections to screenings in Cinemark theaters owned by Alan Stock, who contributed $9,999 to the 'Yes on 8' campaign:
"Mr. Cooper [festival’s director of programming] and [festival director] Mr. Gilmore said festival officials were stepping carefully around demands that they cooperate with a boycott of businesses associated with supporters of California’s Proposition 8, banning gay marriage. The festival, for instance, will make certain that no film is screened only in the Holiday Village theater in Park City, operated by Cinemark, a chain whose chief executive, Alan Stock, donated to Proposition 8’s backers in the November election. The idea is to give anyone who has qualms about Cinemark the opportunity to see a movie somewhere else. But, given the dearth of theaters, programmers don’t intend to abandon the Holiday Village. 'We don’t have an alternative,' Mr. Gilmore said. 'If we had another theater we could walk down the street to, we might be thinking about that.'"
So, yes they're screening in Cinemark, and no, they're not choosing to show any solidarity with the millions of Californians who had their civil rights taken from them except offering them another choice. Separate but equal.
Posted 1:19 PM EST by Andy Towle in California, Film, Gay Marriage, Mormon, News, Proposition 8, Utah | Permalink
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Although I still oppose the Sundance boycott, I thought the Sundance officials' response was weak.
I blogged about it over at Pam's House Blend:
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=8504
~ Mark
Posted by: Mark Worthen | Dec 4, 2008 11:35:28 PM
As a gay man in the industry, I still fully support the boycott of Sundance next year and think it's completely different from the threatening letters the Yes on 8 people sent out.
If I'm rationalizing, so be it. It's not my fucking problem that I will no longer be nice and polite about this.
Posted by: Rey | Dec 5, 2008 12:41:08 AM
By the time the election was over and the names released no doubt the theaters were booked by then. I'm with Gordo, pressure them throughout the year to switch to a gay-friendly theater for the 2010 festival. I'm a bit puzzled though, as I thought they screened the movies on private screens. Perhaps they should look into doing that, no doubt they have the money to put a few screens up.
Posted by: Steven | Dec 5, 2008 1:29:20 AM
I think that the Sundance response is correct. It is too late at this point to cut these theaters from this year's festival, but pressure can be made to have them removed from the 2010 festival. Many of the Sundance venues are indeed private screens (Eccles Theater at the high school, Prospector Square Theater, Library Theater, Racquet Club), but they do screen at some existing movie theaters, like Cinemark Holiday Cinemas. I am impressed that Sundance is making an effort to make sure that no film is screened only at the Holiday (as has happened in past years) and look forward to seeing what happens in 2010.
Posted by: Ted | Dec 5, 2008 4:05:28 AM
LesChuck, actually, "no we can't"... did we defeat Prop 8? No we didn't... did we cause Sundance to do anything meaningful at all? No we didn't... and if you look at the full disclosure of who voted for Prop 8 it has very little to do with religion or race; it rests solely in the hands of the uneducated and lower class.
It's time to stop pretending that we can make this happen on our own, we can't. We need to educate ALL of the people and demonstrate the unfairness and unacceptability of the actions by a majority on to a minority. Education is the route, not boycotts (do you want to be lumped into the likes of the American Family Association or the Phelps clan?) and not violence. We're already being labled the "bad guys" in this fight and those that persecute us are coming out smelling like roses. Look at the reaction of Bill Condon, Don Cheadle and others... Condon is one of the biggest queens in the industry and even he's fighting against us.
I'm not saying we can't eventually overcome these obstacles, only that the road to hope is not paved with insults, boycotts or violence. We're better than that and we need to start proving it.
Posted by: Wayne | Dec 5, 2008 1:02:08 PM
I will permanently boycott every film shown at Sundance this year.
Showing a film at Sundance is a conscious, deliberate decision to promote discrimination and violence against queers, against women, and against people of color.
Posted by: libhomo | Dec 10, 2008 7:27:28 PM
Here's a post from the Park Record, Park City's newspaper, site of Sundance
THIS is what you FUND …GLAAD, and Absolut, and Oil of Olay, and Honda, and Entertainment Weekly, and Sundance channel, and Ray Ban, and 360 Vodka.
"Through out this board the LGBT community has stated that they will not be pushed around and they are now getting aggressive. Just a thought, why dont you all uprise and then everyone who dislikes you can take a shot, who ever is left standing wins."
http://www.topix.net/forum/sou.....VCFQDUP/p6
by poster nicknamed = Don't Listen to me
Posted by: mark | Jan 16, 2009 2:37:32 PM