Thursday, December 4, 2008

on sundance 2009 (boycott options)

from The New York Times' Michael Cieply, Sundance Film Festival Director Geoffrey Gilmore explains options for festivalgoers who plan to avoid screenings at Park City's Holiday Theater (run by Cinemark). Gilmore is responding to claims that some would-be festivalgoers plan to "boycott" the festival (or at least the 4 out of 14 total SFF Cinemark venues) because of the Cinemark CEO's donation to the LDS-lead campaign for California's Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage. Gilmore says that every film screening at the Holiday will also screen at other festival theaters, and in this way, a patron wanting to see that film will have an opportunity to see it in an alternate venue.

knowing what i know about the logistics of staging the festival, this seems at least one reasonable move, and perhaps one of the only reasonable moves festival leadership might make in light of the timeline (the festival is less than 2 months away). and, as i've said before, Sundance is not the enemy of gay people; queer cinema has found and continues to find a great deal of its momentum via Sundance.

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