CSRC RESEARCH REPORT NO. 5 • JANUARY 2005 AN OCCASIONAL SERIES AVAILABLE IN ELECTRONIC FORMAT MINORITY FILMMAKERS, MEDIA INSTITUTIONS,AND PRESS DISCOURSE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS HYE SEUNG CHUNG AND JUN OKADA, WITH ASSISTANCE BY MAJA MANOJLOVIC UCLA CHICANO STUDIES RESEARCH CENTER Film scholarship has a bias toward studying mainstream movies, especially Hollywood film, and ignoring minority participation. By analyzing five film magazines, this study collates press coverage of the last quarter- century of African American, Asian American, Latino/Chicano, and Native American participation in other mediums, including avant-garde film, video art, documentary, short narrative, and public affairs television. Findings were that despite clear efforts to represent minority cinema, there was a significant lack of reporting on Latino/Chicano and Native American cinema. A comprehensive bibliography is provided. FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center • 193 Haines Hall • Los Angeles, CA 90095-1544 Phone: 310-825-2642 • Fax: 310-206-1784 • E-Mail: [email protected] The center’s books and journals are sold at www.chicano.ucla.edu Editor: Chon A. Noriega • Publications Coordinator: Wendy Belcher This series is a project of the CSRC Latino Research Program, which receives funding from the University of California Committee on Latino Research. MISSION STATEMENT The UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center supports interdisciplinary, collaborative, and policy-oriented research on issues critical to the Chicano community. The center’s press disseminates books, working papers, and the peer-reviewed Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies. CSRC RESEARCH REPORT DECEMBER 2004 his report emerges out of the the Prize, Chicano! and Images of Indians, of minority cinema in both trade and but also hundreds of avant-garde and commercial periodicals illuminates CSRC Race and Independent experimental works in Super-8, 16mm, the formation of distinct independent Media Project, a collaborative and video; minority cinemas, with commercial —the underpinnings of indepen- periodicals emphasizing commercially Teffort started in 2001 that involves dence, including funding, rights, access, successful directors and trade peri- scholars and graduate students from contracts, and distributors. odicals emphasizing directors with less commercial successes. Although both around the United States. The project In some cases, the need for such commercial and trade periodicals dis- research is urgent, given the potential started based on two observations about played consistent efforts to represent loss of senior filmmakers, institutional minority cinemas, there was a significant scholarly research on race in film and documents, or “orphan” film and video lack of reporting on Latino/Chicano works. But there is an additional need television studies: and Native American cinema in all of to conduct this research in sound ways. the periodicals. 1. that racial groups tend to be Thus, the project’s primary goal is to Below we discuss the various peri- looked at either in isolation or on the provide an alternative to the Hollywood basis of a one-to-one relationship with odicals tracked in this report, review bias within film and television stud- the findings regarding media policy and the dominant culture; and ies, thereby creating a new paradigm 2. that Hollywood often serves as the specific minority cinemas, suggest fur- for researching the history of minority ther areas for investigation, and provide predominant framework. participation in avant-garde film, video Recent work has challenged this nar- an extensive bibliography of the race- art, documentary, short narrative, and related articles in these periodicals. row model, since minority racial groups public affairs television. should be understood in relationship Our report takes a first step toward SOURCES to each other as well as the dominant this goal by comparing print discourses Our research report reviews represen- culture and since many of these groups about minority cinema in independent tative media periodicals, including have had limited access to the resources trade periodicals as well as in several institutional trade periodicals for and institutions needed for the feature- related film journals over the past independent film/video-makers (The length narratives typical of Hollywood. three decades. These periodicals are Independent Film and Video Monthly There remains a need to develop a valuable historical documents that [1979–2001] and Release Print critical paradigm for a comparative race provide a narrative of the emergence [1984–1998]) and commercial and jour- analysis that examines independent film of independent minority media prac- nalistic periodicals targeting a broader and video production. tices, individual minority filmmakers, readership (CineAction [1985–2001], Based on wide ranging conversations and the policies that foreground racial Cineaste [1967–2001], and Filmmaker with media advocates, festival program- diversity in independent media. In our [1992–1999]). mers, foundation program officers, and report, we compare reporting on African Originally, both The Independent independent producers, the CSRC Race American cinema, Asian American Film and Video Monthly and Release Print and Independent Media Project began cinema, Latino/Chicano cinema, and served the function of newsletters for to focus on minority participation in Native American cinema. their respective media organizations: the independent film and television history, Association of Independent Video and especially such understudied areas as: FINDINGS Filmmakers (AIVF) of New York and —media institutions, including the Our findings reveal that film periodicals the Film Arts Foundation (FAF) of San minority public broadcasting consortia, vary significantly in their coverage of Francisco. The first was begun in 1978 professional advocacy groups, archive both independent media policy and by the Foundation for Independent Film and research centers, festivals; minority cinemas. While coverage of and Video (FIFV), the largest national —production companies, including policy issues concerning racial diversity organization representing independent Blackside, Visual Communications, in independent media is virtually absent media artists. In 1994, FIFV went into Paradigm Productions; from more commercial periodicals, they partnership AIVF and The Independent —public affairs series, including take center stage in the institutional became The Independent Film and Video Black Journal, Silk Screen and Reflecciones; trade periodicals that function as a Monthly. According to the AIVF web- —key film and video texts, includ- public sphere where filmmakers debate site (www.aivf.org), “The Independent ing such documentary series as Eyes on the politics of representation. Coverage is published ten times annually, with a 2 U C L A C S R C MINORITY FILMMAKERS, MEDIA INSTITUTIONS, AND PRESS DISCOURSE per issue readership exceeding 30,000: the 1960s to the 1980s gradually gave Off-Hollywood Report and the IFP/West’s making it one of the most frequently way to a focus on minority cinemas of Montage magazine—were merged in published and widely read periodicals the United States during the cultural 1992 to form the quarterly Filmmaker. in the field. It deals with a wide range sea change of the 1990s. This change in Although the magazine is available as a of aesthetic, legal, business, free speech, focus reflected a shift in the meaning of benefit of IFP membership (which cur- and public policy issues, and offers news the term itself. The term Third Cinema rently numbers more than 10,000), over coverage and artist profiles. Regular was originally coined by Argentinean 50 percent of circulation copies are sold listings include the field’s most accurate filmmakers Fernando Solanas and on newsstands and retail bookstores. source of festival information, distribu- Octavio Getino in their 1973 mani- As presenters of the major coast-to- tor and funder profiles, and funding and festo “Toward a Third Cinema,” and coast indie film events—the annual exhibition opportunities.” was understood to mean non-Western Independent Feature Film Market, Release Print serves a similar purpose cinema only. But with the collapse of IFP Gotham Awards, and IFP/West on a more regional level. It is a monthly the Second World communist bloc, the Independent Spirit Awards—the IFPs newsletter issued by FAF, a non-profit increasing relocation of citizens from and Filmmaker contribute to the popu- Northern California organization. non-Western countries to the West, larization of independent filmmaking as Founded in 1976, FAF currently has and the emergence of diasporic cultural a news-making phenomenon. 3,400 members working in film, video expressions around the world, the mean- We tracked the coverage of media and multimedia. As the largest regional ing of the term began to shift. By the policy and minority cinemas in all advocate of independent producers, 1990s, works by diasporic and ethnic of these commercial and trade film FAF provides comprehensive training, filmmakers preoccupied with exploring periodicals from their inception to the equipment, information, consultations, their hybrid identities and cultural roots present. and exhibition opportunities to local while working in metropolitan areas of community. Like The Independent, the the West had emerged as the primary INDEPENDENT MEDIA POLICY institutional newsletter is issued ten subjects of Third Cinema discourse.