Market Pressures: WIDC Wobbles
“It’s March, 2003, and we are tense,” read the introduction to the schedule for the 22nd annual Women in the Director’s Chair Film and Video Festival. The reference was to the threat of war hanging in the air as the program went to press, but for the WIDC staff there was another source of strain closer to home. Since 9/11, the organization had been in a financial crunch. “We felt an immediate impact,” says executive director Rebecca Gee. Corporation sponsorships had dried up, except for “in-kind” support, and government and foundation grants had either shrunk or been deferred. At the same time, WIDC’s annual budget was at an all-time high of $170,000. The group’s strategy for dealing with the situation was to fatten its annual festival (which usually was lucky to break even) and use the surplus ticket income to make ends meet.
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The staff of three, aided by volunteers, worked for seven months planning the ten-day, four-venue event, which would screen 135 films and videos from 20 countries. It was set to run March 14 through March 23. Opening weekend was a little disappointing, drawing average numbers of viewers for films that included Yvonne Welbon’s Sisters in Cinema and the premiere of Su Friedrich’s Odds of Recovery. On the fourth night, with Bush on television announcing that Saddam’s time had run out, the audience disappeared. Gee watched in dismay as a mere half-dozen people showed up at the Art Institute’s Columbus Auditorium for a film that should have been an excellent draw–Ghost Cities, set in Chicago and made by local filmmaker Ines Sommer. By the next night, the war was under way. With the exception of Chekhov’s Motifs, which drew a sizable niche crowd of Russians, the rest of the festival played like private screenings, sometimes to as few as three people. When it was over, attendance was a third of what it had been in 2002, when there were 25 percent fewer programs, and instead of generating new income the fest had run up a $20,000 debt. On April 1, already behind on payroll, WIDC laid off two staff members and Gee dropped to part-time status.
Artemisia Caves
Artemesia didn’t want to fold either, but it did. Board president Judith Brotman says the show that closed April 26 was the 30-year-old gallery’s last. The door at 700 N. Carpenter is locked, and “we’ve started the paperwork for dissolution.” Last year the organization lost a major donor, and membership is declining; Brotman says the current 11-member roster could drop to six come fall, resulting in a “staggering” workload for the few people left. Gallery owner Rhona Hoffman says the women-run co-op’s time may have passed, “since so many women now have representation in heterosexual galleries.” According to Hoffman: “Most women don’t want to be segregated. They want to play with the big boys.”
