When is filmmaking not enough? Following the 2004 elections, some filmmakers are diverting their attention towards hands-on activism.

BY REED MARTIN

Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 was the most widely seen and commercially successful political documentary of all time, yet it failed to achieve its stated goal: to influence the electorate to vote George W. Bush out of office.

Whether Moore’s film was a valuable near miss, energizing the Democratic base and tilting enough undecideds to make a close election, or whether its slickly edited agitprop served mostly to rally the opposition, its role in the 2004 campaign has caused filmmakers to ruminate over the limits of independent film as an activist medium. Whether it’s due to the development and editorial process that’s often involved when there’s industry financing, the long lead times between production and distribution, or the difficulty in raising funds for opinionated work, many filmmakers are dropping their cameras and instead leveraging the social and professional connections they’ve built as filmmakers to engage in direct political activism.

MEDIATING THE MESSAGE Alongside the growing consolidation of media companies has been an equal, if opposite, rise of activist groups ready to watchdog or challenge those same media conglomerates. And the Web, with its capacity to link world audiences to local grass-roots organizations, has aided and abetted this new wave of media activism. There are two often connected goals at play: first, to challenge the dominant (read right-wing) media’s version of the truth and to either provide or facilitate access for alternative communities. As Jeff Cohen, the founder of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), states in their mission statement, “We advocate for media access on behalf of those constituencies in our society that do not have the wealth to purchase their own TV stations or daily newspapers.” While critique of dominant media is as old as free press itself, this new wave of activism is focused not just on critiquing what is said, but on how the message and the medium have been inextricably connected. Many of the new blogs, like the succinctly named Lying Media Bastards, fight the system with blow-by-blow challenges to news reports. Larger organizations, like Free Press and the Seattle-based Reclaim the Media, underscore the importance of restructuring the current media structure. The Center for International Media Action relates that they were “founded in 2003 to help connect and strengthen organizations working to transform the media and communications system.” While many of these activism sites directly address television and print journalism, they never lose sight of the role of film and documentaries. The Media Education Foundation creates and distributes documentaries that engage the questions about the relationship between media consolidation and political agendas. Some of the video docs, like Mickey Mouse Monopoly, Behind the Screens and The Killing Screens, speak directly to the politics of contemporary film production. Other groups, like Media Channel, include entertainment figures like Danny Glover and filmmaker Roland Joffé as part of their advisory board. — Peter Bowen

“During the run-up to the 2004 election I felt the urgent situation at hand was what needed to be served and that filmmaking for me wasn’t a means to that end,” explains Kissing Jessica Stein producer Eden Wurmfeld. “I’m not in TV news, I’m not someone who can run out and shoot something, edit it in five seconds and then turn it out to the world. Had a film-related opportunity that was political arisen I would have considered it, but I really wanted to be personally responsible for getting that many more Democratic votes out and not just by increasing registrations. I spent three weeks running the Kerry office in the Sarasota/Manatee County area of North Florida, and then on Election Day I was literally pulling people out of their homes to get them to the polls.”

Actor, director and GreeneStreet Films cofounder Fisher Stevens had a similar ambition this past fall. “During the election Chad Lowe and I co-founded an organization called Bring Ohio Back with some people living in the state,” he says. “We organized a bus tour of film and TV actors to tour through Ohio. We did three different trips with actors like Hilary Swank, Julianna Margulies, Matt Dillon, Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Giancarlo Esposito, Joey Pantoliano and Martin Sheen. We raised a lot of money, and we put commercials on the air in Ohio with the funds we raised. I got pretty obsessed with it, to the point where it kind of invaded my real life and my work life, but it was okay because it was something I truly believed in.”

Working in Florida, Wurmfeld discovered that grass-roots political activism had a lot in common with indie film production. “It was actually refreshing to realize that the skills that serve me in filmmaking could serve me well in another arena,” says Wurmfeld. “All my producing skills, my organizational skills and my people-management skills were incredibly valuable. Rallying people to a common cause, organizing volunteers, delegating, strategizing… I thought, Oh, good — I do have other talents!

Indeed, for many filmmakers, political activism is necessary precisely as a counterbalance to their professional lives. “I believe that [filmmaking and direct activism] are both important,” says American Standoff director Kristi Jacobson. “Right now I’m making a film about my grandfather, who owned a restaurant in New York City in the ’40s and ’50s. It’s a great story, but it’s certainly not political. It actually makes me feel conflicted that this film is not a politically activist kind of statement, and because of that I make sure that I’m more active politically in my personal life.”

Similarly, Stevens has debated the issue of incorporating more of his political ideas in his work. “I always try as a filmmaker to work on things that have some social relevance,” he says. “But in the end there’s a reality of having to survive. I think there’s a time when you have to say, ‘I’m just going to make this [project] so I can make some money, continue to support political activism, and so I can afford to go to Ohio.’ I think my responsibility is to be very socially conscious in the long run, but there have been times as a producer or as a director when I’ve said, ‘You know what? I’m going to make entertainment.’”

Other politically engaged filmmakers feel that they are unable to keep their political and professional lives separate. “One of the problems with being politically active in a way that’s totally divorced from the rest of your world is, well, who has that much time available?” comments Jed Weintrob, whose The F Word, a doc-drama hybrid about the political activism set during the last day of the 2004 Republican Convention in New York, will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. “Who has enough spare time to go off and do everything they want to do?”

Weintrob’s film tells the story of a fictional radio broadcaster who, on the day his station is scheduled to go off the air due to FCC fines, hits the protest-packed streets of New York with a microphone to give voice to the individuals and groups outside the convention hall. “Being able to combine [filmmaking and politics] is important,” he says, “especially at a time when we’re fighting a media oligarchy that is pushing [media content] so greatly toward the right.” By keeping his production small, fast and mobile, Weintrob says he was able to convince names like Sam Rockwell to be involved: “If I asked people whose job it is to write or act to spend a few hours and be involved in my film, it’s much easier for them to say yes than it is for them to go to Ohio for three days to sign up voters.”

For Supersize Me director Morgan Spurlock, the increasing conservatism of the mainstream media cited by Weintrob is reason enough for filmmakers to become more politically active. He reminds indie directors that even if they do directly address political themes in their work, they may not receive distribution so that their voices can be heard.

“While I was traveling around the world to promote my film, there were countless news organizations — TV, print and radio outlets — who wouldn’t talk to me,” he explains. “They wouldn’t do interviews because McDonald’s was one of their biggest sponsors. McDonald’s or their ad agency would call and threaten to take away their ad revenue if they did a story about me. What you’re starting to see is that corporations now have the power and the reach to manipulate and control the media. I think we live in a time where slowly but surely our First Amendment freedoms are being chipped away.”

“So much of the scary stuff that’s happening politically in our world right now is being executed through the media,” adds Weintrob. “The government is hiring planted journalists or faux ‘constituents’ to ask questions at rallies; they are producing video press releases and sending them out on to the airwaves so they look like they’re independently produced news packages, and they’re paying journalists to espouse certain opinions. It’s scary. I think as filmmakers and media people, we have a real responsibility to push on the other side at the same time.”

A desire to create work that intersects with the mainstream media and outside of traditional “indie” channels has driven some filmmakers to align with activist groups like MoveOn.org. “A lot of filmmakers got involved with MoveOn.org [in 2004] because they wanted to get George Bush out of office — it’s that simple,” says the group’s cultural director Laura Dawn. “We had a contest called “Bush in 30 Seconds,” where anyone in the nation could make a 30-second advertisement exposing Bush administration policies. We had millions of people vote and narrowed our entries down to 10 finalists, and then our judges picked the winner. But when we tried to air the winning ad during the Super Bowl, CBS banned it. Now MoveOn is in a different phase. We’re working on all kinds of things that our millions of members want us to address, most importantly Social Security. Right now we’re in the middle of doing a Flash animation contest about Social Security with John Cusack and Richard Linklater as judges. A lot of filmmakers have stayed active in the fight, and I think it’s for similar reasons: Many of them oppose the policies of this administration and they want to do whatever they can to raise awareness.”

And then there are filmmakers who conceive of politics in a broader sense and look to make work that identifies itself with social change in relevant but less specific ways. Producer Effie Brown, who recently formed a new company, Duly Noted, with an eight-film slate, comments, “The socially conscious filmmaking that I do is connected to the human drama: cultural issues, social identity issues, racial issues and how these issues play out within our daily lives. My slate of films right now is a bit of a grab bag in terms of content, but I’d like to think that they all shed light on social subjects that are largely ignored. I feel that making those kind of films is in itself a form of political filmmaking.”

As a member of the media, Brown is mindful of the line between alienating an audience and educating it. “I don’t believe you have to wear your political beliefs on your sleeve,” she says. “There’s a time and a place, and you have to do it when people are receptive; otherwise it may backfire. Nobody wants to be preached to when they shell out their 10 bucks. My first priority is always to get audiences to find a story engaging. If you can do that, then it’s possible to try to get them to take something else away from your story. Artists often don’t choose the best time to expound on their beliefs — personally, I find it quite annoying when filmmakers use awards shows to present a political idea out of context.”

“I’m a little more private in terms of my political activities,” concurs Loggerheads producer Gill Holland, who volunteers for the inner-city program Working Playground. “I don’t think anyone should say, ‘Oh, filmmakers should do this’ or ‘Filmmakers should do that.’ There are definitely some people who are equally eloquent behind and in front of the camera — like in any other field—but politics and morality are individual issues. Some people tell very heart-warming stories that have no politics at all, and the value of what they do can be as important socially as a political statement.”

Ultimately, however, according to Mario Van Peebles, writer, director and star of such politically themed films as Panther and Baadasssss!, filmmakers of all kinds will naturally become more energized and socially aware when their own day-to-day realities become more difficult. “First of all, money’s tighter, and that impacts the world we’re in, trying to get these films financed,”he explains. “Every time we’ve had this kind of swing to the right, the Republicans say it’s going to have a supply-side trickle-down effect, but it never does. Under Reagan the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and you had a widening gap. We’re having that again now, and whenever that gap happens the money gets tighter and conditions get tougher.”

He concludes, “It’s time for people to wake up and get involved again. Democracy is like a car: You take your foot off the gas and the whole thing slows down. A collective-empowerment message is what we need right now to turn the tide on what’s happening in this country.”

Go to the sidebar: GROUND CONTROL: Why Democratic filmmakers’ efforts in Ohio during the 2004 elections fell short.