Category: issues

“Female directors, as rare in Hollywood as obese actresses, are prominent at the Sundance Film Festival. Only 7 percent of the 250 top-grossing movies in 2005 were directed by women, according to a study by San Diego State University. But at this year’s festival in Park City, Utah, which runs through Jan. 28, 52 of the 196 features and short films were made by women.”

Missouri arts supporters are alwrmed at a proposal in the state legislature which would, “under certain circumstances, allow lawmakers access to almost $1 billion in funds reserved for, among other things, the arts. That includes about $28 million in the Missouri Cultural Trust, which was established in the 1990s as an endowment for the Missouri Arts Council.”

The acclaimed Battersea Arts Center has been told its local funding (representing 30 percent of its budget) will be slashed to zero. A spokesman for the local council “praised BAC’s work and then argued that because BAC has earned a regional, national and international reputation, its local funding should be cut. ‘Is it right that that Wandsworth should have to carry the can for what is really a London resource’?”

“If broadcast radio won’t provide the eclectic mix that so many young listeners create on their own iPods, then arts organizations will just have to do it themselves. In Washington, Wolf Trap, Strathmore and the Shakespeare Theatre Company are reaching out to existing customers and new audiences with Internet radio stations and podcasts — radio programs listeners can download for use at their convenience.”

“As the rambunctious entertainers of the Internet make their plays for the showbiz big leagues, these overnight superstars are enjoying the standard introduction to Hollywood. Which means not just glad-handing agents and Kafkaesque ‘lunch meetings’ but also the bitter falling-out with your partners from the ‘hood, complete with morning-after mudslinging.” Case in point: the meteoric rise and disastrous fall of the video blog, Rocketboom.

“Telephone pleas for donations can draw big bucks for charities, but even bigger ones for the companies making the calls. Private telemarketing companies calling on behalf of more than 450 nonprofits in New York collected $190 million in 2005 — the best year since 1999. But as much as 90 cents of every dollar donated never reaches the nonprofit and is kept by the telemarketing companies.”

12-year-old actress Dakota Fanning has a new movie coming out this month, and it has conservative bloggers, Fox News personalities, and some child safety advocates up in arms. In the film, Fanning’s character appears in her underwear, is sexually abused by her father, and is raped by a teenager. “Hundreds signed a petition to persuade a [North Carolina] district attorney to prosecute the filmmakers under a law banning simulated sex with a minor.”

“The future of one of London’s leading arts venues, Battersea Arts Centre, is in doubt after the local council unveiled plans to slash funding.”

“As a percen tage of GDP, individual charitable giving in the US is more than double that in the UK. In 2002, $183.7bn was given, which represented 1.75 per cent of GDP. Using the same measure for the same year, UK individual giving was £7.3bn, or 0.76 per cent of GDP.”

“There is no law of nature according to which artists must of their nature be rational, sensible and well judging; rather the reverse tends to be true, because the arts have to do with risk, danger, experiment, originality and inconsistency. They are born out of anger, resentment, joy, contrariness and wildness, with the result that few artists have ever been balanced and well-informed political or moral philosophers. In fact if artists were judged on their views, theatres and galleries and bookshops would be almost empty.”