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Jon Jost Announces Fundraising Plans For 2K Transfers of Mark Rappaport’s Films
Mark Rappaport The fight between the great director Mark Rappaport (Local Color, From The Journals Of Jean Seberg) and Boston University film scholar/Cassavetes specialist Ray Carney has its origins in 2005, when the filmmaker entrusted copies of his movies to the professor. In 2012, Rappaport went public with the troubling contention that Carney refused to return his work, effectively making it impossible for the director to earn any revenue from exhibiting the films. As Rappaport wrote last year, “the chances of anyone or any organization either having the interest, inclination, and, even more importantly, the cash to go through the very expensive process of digitizing these films, during my lifetime, is next to nil.” For his part, Carney has stuck to vigorous denial, though lately he hasn’t written about Rappaport. At his blog, the professor has instead been regularly posting updates on what he characterizes as BU’s attempts to repress his academic freedom of speech.
Throughout the back and forth, director Jon Jost has been an ardent supporter of Rappaport’s. Now, in his first update since last May, Jost has announced his intention to start fundraising to transfer Rappaport’s work to 2K. While Carney has copies of the films, Jost says that fortunately he’s not in possession of the negatives. Enter the Cinémathèque Française, which is planning a full retrospective. Says Jost:
The Cinematheque Francaise, which is planning a full retrospective of Mark’s work, has had all the original negatives and sound materials sent to Paris, and can provide Mark with the discount they receive for lab work for transfers to 2K if funding can be raised for this.
The cost of making the transfers is estimated to be from $20,000 to $25,000. Which fund-raising system will be used is as yet undecided, but I am leaning towards Hatchfund, which is a non-profit, and confined to artists and thus more restricted in those it appeals to. I hope to initiate fund-raising this summer, or perhaps early in the autumn.
You can Jost’s post in full here.
