What the Los Angeles County Art Museum’s threatened film program is to LA, the Northwest Film Forum is to Seattle.
With a 30 percent drop in income, on July 30 NFF asked everybody with a
stake to send $10 by Aug. 15. Sub Pop responded with a matching grant
of $10,000. To date, NFF has raised more than $33,000.
NFF was looking at a $70,000 deficit for the current year (on a $700,000 annual budget) and hopes to close with less than $35,000 in the minus column.
In the meantime, NFF has laid off its
excellent managing director Susie Purves, whose background covers a wide variety of
Seattle’s arts institutions, including as curator and/or director of the
Center on Contemporary Art, Kirkland Arts Center, On the Boards and the
Seattle International Children’s Festival.
Two more staff have been cut from full time to 24 hours a week. Again, an arts institution will try to do what it does with less money and important staff missing. Director Lyall said he hopes to be full strength by the end of the year.
What NFF does, from its Web site:
Screening over 200 independently made and classic films annually,
offering a year-round schedule of filmmaking classes for all ages, and
supporting filmmakers at all stages of their careers, the Northwest
Film Forum is Seattle’s premier film arts organization.Founded in 1995 by filmmakers Jamie Hook and Deborah
Girdwood, NWFF now operates the region’s first and only non-profit
center for the film arts. NWFF programs a true cinematheque, embracing
film production as well as film exhibition, with two cinemas, film
production and post-production facilities and equipment, educational
workshop space, filmmaker offices, a film vault containing over 1,000
titles and a filmmaking library in its space at 1515 12th Ave.Nearly 1000 members strong, NWFF aides 250 filmmakers in the
production of nearly 80 films, and offers more than 60 workshops
annually. Our Start-to-Finish grant program partners with a local
artist to produce a feature length film, using both for and non-profit
funding, a model unique in the non-profit world. The most recent film,
The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, premiered at the 2009
Sundance Film Festival.Our cinemas showcase the best in American and international
cinema, 360 days a year, as well as quarterly world premiere live
performances. Recent highlights include: a 27 film retrospective of
Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu that included ten commissions for live
musical scores; Children’s Film Festival Seattle; a lecture and class
by designer/filmmaker Pablo Ferro; a retrospective of the documentaries
of Ross McElwee that included a visit from the artist; and the
strongest music film programming in the nation.
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