I: Can you describe Filmmakers Collaborative?

BW: Filmmakers Collaborative (FC) was started in 1986 by filmmaker Michal Goldman. She had been working on a documentary about Klezmer music, using a local non-profit fiscal sponsor. Filmmakers receiving grants from foundations or government institutions, like the National Endowment for the Humanities, are required to put the grant money through a non-profit fiscal sponsor, which takes a percentage fee out for administrative costs and oversees the grant money and the project. Michal found this particular organization to be cumbersome to work with and they charged a high fiscal sponsor fee. She decided to start her own non-profit but didn’t think it made sense to do it just for herself. She had met other documentary filmmakers in Boston, so she thought, why not do it for a group, that it was silly to duplicate the work every time a filmmaker wanted to make a film. She was working with Anne Craig and had met Marlene Booth, John Junkerman, Janet Mendelsohn, and Cindy Marshall, who were all working through other non-profit fiscal sponsors. So they all joined together and formed Filmmakers Collaborative.

I: What new directions are FC moving in with the hiring of an Executive Director?

BW: Since FC’s president, Michal Goldman, along with help from the other officers, has been running FC since the beginning, she found that the day-to-day work was draining time away from her own film projects. Michal and the other FC members felt that it was time to bring someone on who could take over most of the management of FC and help it grow in a new direction–not to detract from its original mission of enabling independent filmmakers to do their work, but to develop programs that fit with our mission to do community service, like our "Film Talks" program and Filmmakers Open Studios, to recruit new members, to develop the board, and to fundraise and increase our visibility.

Recently we’ve been pushing forward in some new directions. We’ve always been more than just a pass-through organization because of the Boston Jewish Film Festival, which Michal began in 1989 and which FC sponsored for its first 10 years. I guess this was the beginning of FC’s public presence in the community, a sort of community service that we provided. When the festival split off on its own in 1998, Michal wanted FC to have another program that could both serve the public and draw on the important work and talent of the FC members, so she started "Film Talks," a kind of speakers’ bureau, as a way to get our filmmakers and films out into the community. FC also initiated and organized last year’s Filmmakers Open Studios in conjunction with BF/VF. This was another kind of community outreach program and a way to celebrate regional independent filmmaking as part of the festivities of the 25th anniversary of the New England Film & Video Festival. On March 19, 2000, 21 video, animation and sound studios, production houses, and film & video organizations, including FC, opened their doors to the public, much like artists’ open studios. It was a huge success, with over 400 people attending. We’re planning to make Open Studios an annual event and have been talking with BF/VF about enlarging it in upcoming years to include a conference, round table discussions, and free film screenings.

I: What makes FC different from other fiscal sponsors?

BW: The founders’ original goal was to form a non-profit to provide mutual support for local independent filmmakers and fiscal sponsorship for their work at a low rate, while at the same time preserving their creative autonomy. They wanted it to be member-driven, where the members decided on policies and met quarterly. At first no one needed fiscal sponsorship because they were still tied up with their previous sponsors, but the members enjoyed getting together and screening each others’ rough cuts. It was meant to be a real collaborative. Then, gradually, they started getting new members and more projects and money started coming in. Unlike other fiscal sponsors, we really stress collaboration among our members. We’ve historically been a group of very experienced filmmakers, but we’ve restructured our membership so that now we have a new level of membership for newer filmmakers who have wonderful film projects but less experience as filmmakers. We’re offering them mentorship opportunities with the more established FC filmmakers and additional help with budgeting and bookkeeping. We’re also planning a major day-long conference in early 2001, which would benefit the broader film community. Of course the core of our work is still the films produced by our members.

I: Can you describe some of these films?

BW: Our work has tended toward issues of history, music, art, culture, social justice, and grassroots activism. We have everything from John Junkerman’s four-part PBS series about music along the Mississippi River, RIVER OF SONG, to Marlene Booth’s personal documentary about growing up Jewish in Iowa, YIDL IN THE MIDDLE. Several of our filmmakers’ programs, like Kathryn Dietz’s ELEANOR ROOSEVELT and Laurie Kahn-Leavitt’s A MIDWIFE’S TALE have aired on THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE; Linda Harrar’s SIX BILLION AND BEYOND was another prime-time PBS program; and other films are used extensively for education and empowerment, like Leah Mahan and Mark Lipman’s HOLDING GROUND: THE REBIRTH OF DUDLEY STREET, a primer on grassroots activism. Some of our current projects are about organizing child care workers in Rhode Island, following a death penalty case in Texas, the history of Tupperware, the first year of the Epiphany School in Boston, and an extensive videotaped oral history project about Africans who are shaping modern-day Africa.

I: Can you tell us about FC’s new "Film Talks" program?

BW: Our filmmakers spend several years researching and making a documentary, which when completed gets shown at festivals or on television, but then often gets put aside while the filmmaker focuses on his or her next project. "Film Talks" allows filmmakers to show valuable, but perhaps less frequently-seen–films too small (often underserved), audiences who otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to see these films, or if they did manage to see them, would not have the chance to talk to the filmmaker about the issues raised by the films or the filmmaking process. "Film Talks" creates the opportunity for interaction between filmmaker and audience to explore these important issues. And it allows our filmmakers to engage more in the greater community. We’ve received some grant money from LEF, the Mass. Foundation for the Humanities, and the Watertown Savings Bank and we’re pursuing more funding so we can continue the program. So far we’ve either done or have scheduled presentations at libraries, schools, Boston community centers, a Jewish community center, art centers, an adult ed program, and even a lock-up for teenage boys.

I: How has FC evolved over the years?

BW: FC started off small, with just six members and small projects coming in. Then, around 1990, people began approaching FC with projects. Laurie Kahn-Leavitt needed a fiscal sponsor for her dramatic historical reenactment, A MIDWIFE’S TALE, and Kathryn Dietz needed sponsorship for ELEANOR ROOSEVELT. Since both were NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) funded projects, this began the NEH era of FC. This was serious business because NEH pushes sponsorship organizations to develop good accounting procedures and really turned out to be responsible for how FC developed organizationally. These films were good for FC in other ways, too. They both had large budgets and so brought in a lot of money and both aired on PBS’ THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. Other big projects were John Junkerman’s RIVER OF SONG and Linda Harrar’s SIX BILLION AND BEYOND. But despite the bread-and-butter these big projects bring in, it has always been important for FC to remain a group with a wide range of projects–not just the big-budget PBS shows, but also the smaller films, like Marlene’s very personal YIDL IN THE MIDDLE, Michal’s portrait of the Egyptian singer, UMM KULTHUM, and the primers on grassroots organizing, like HOLDING GROUND and YES NO MUMBO JUMBO. These smaller-scale films are just as valued as the large-scale projects.

The next era for FC was when we got our first operational support grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) in 1998. Applying for this grant gave Michal and Kathryn the impetus to think organizationally and strategically about where FC was going and how the filmmakers could engage in a process that could help the community be a better place to make and see documentaries. It was a good exercise to think about how to present FC as an organization worth supporting. With the grant money we were able to conduct some mini film school seminars for the members and develop the "Film Talks" program, among other things.

I: How does one become a member of FC? Are there any requirements for membership?

BW: Currently FC has 14 members, but not all have active projects. My goal is to have 20 members by the end of the year, so that we have several projects going at once. Filmmakers with projects in need of a fiscal sponsor can send us a proposal or treatment which gets circulated among the membership and voted on for approval. We usually invite the filmmaker to one of our quarterly meetings to meet everyone and discuss the project. There’s more information about FC and our films at our website at www.filmmakerscollab.org

I: How’s the job been so far?

BW: It’s been a great job for me. I’ve been pursuing funding leads and writing proposals, talking with the board members about expanding the board, bringing the website up to date, planning a conference with the members, developing the "Film Talks" program, and planning next years’ Filmmakers Open Studios. There’s always so much to do and not enough time to do it, but it’s very satisfying, especially when we see grant money and new projects coming in. It’s very rewarding. And when I develop my own film project, one of these days, I’ll know exactly where to go!