Nancy's documentary won best doc at Inside out. I wasn't even the primary cameraperson - I just happened to be the freelancer who was around to shoot an historic event that she was able to use to tell the story.
She called me up a day after winning to tell me about it.
Today, I watched from the audience while a client/producer for whom I conceptualized, developed, wrote and rewrote, cast, directed, shot and rough-edited a piece *gave herself an award* for that video without deigning to mention that I'd done more than shoot it.
Insulting. Weird. Familiar.
I'm disappointed and angry particularly because the award is for feminist porn. It seems like sloppy politics not to acknowledge the rare times when there is constructive male leadership in strongly pro-feminist, woman-centric projects.
Obviously, it's not about giving the guy in this kind of situation center stage or undue airtime. It is, (sez I from my little soapbox) about recognizing quality alliances when they happen across our single-issue categories of gender, ethnicity, etc. That's how we sustain movements; motivate new allies; how we remember we're not alone with our issues.
I wouldn't have known the award ceremony was happening at all if my date hadn't been going there anyway, and I wouldn't have known from listening that my client hadn't cooked the whole project up herself and just hired me to point a camera.
First public screening of this piece, the client called herself a co-director. She wasn't, but that's not a big deal. This time my directorial input wasn't mentioned at all. Perhaps by the time it actually circulates all the inconvenient messiness of my presence in the project can disappear entirely.
She called me up a day after winning to tell me about it.
Today, I watched from the audience while a client/producer for whom I conceptualized, developed, wrote and rewrote, cast, directed, shot and rough-edited a piece *gave herself an award* for that video without deigning to mention that I'd done more than shoot it.
Insulting. Weird. Familiar.
I'm disappointed and angry particularly because the award is for feminist porn. It seems like sloppy politics not to acknowledge the rare times when there is constructive male leadership in strongly pro-feminist, woman-centric projects.
Obviously, it's not about giving the guy in this kind of situation center stage or undue airtime. It is, (sez I from my little soapbox) about recognizing quality alliances when they happen across our single-issue categories of gender, ethnicity, etc. That's how we sustain movements; motivate new allies; how we remember we're not alone with our issues.
I wouldn't have known the award ceremony was happening at all if my date hadn't been going there anyway, and I wouldn't have known from listening that my client hadn't cooked the whole project up herself and just hired me to point a camera.
First public screening of this piece, the client called herself a co-director. She wasn't, but that's not a big deal. This time my directorial input wasn't mentioned at all. Perhaps by the time it actually circulates all the inconvenient messiness of my presence in the project can disappear entirely.