[Frameworks] NEW DIRECTOR NEEDED for Millennium Film Workshop

Sat Sep 26 17:04:54 UTC 2015

Hi folks,

We’ve really gone down the rabbit hole on this one. Between the detailed analyses of Jona Gerlach’s identity and self-righteous tsk-tsk-ing emails to an author who isn’t even on the list anymore, it might strike some that the gentlemen and ladies of Frameworks doth protest too much.

A little googling finds the name Jona Gerlach deep in staff lists of several film festivals and as the author of a handful of online DVD reviews, among other things. So I think we can take the initial email at face value - a young filmmaker who joined Frameworks to connect with a larger film community. And saying that listservs are irrelevant to young people is like saying 16mm is irrelevant to them, which isn’t the case and is a little dangerous to assume, I think. 

None of this is to defend someone who joins an email list and jumps off it immediately because of a single negative email. Many of the responses make good points, but they remind me of the Seinfeld episode where George obsesses over how he could have responded to a work colleague’s insult at a staff meeting, then goes to absurd lengths to re-create the confrontation so he can use the retort he comes up with.

Anyway, all this has turned our attention from problems at Millennium to problems with millennials, which I think are much less interesting and productive for us to be talking about. Is there any foundation to the original accusations? Is there anything we could do to improve things? To intervene? At the very least, is there a more objective account of what’s gone on at Millennium that we might be able to read and discuss?

Believe me, I like a good millennial smackdown, but I can’t help feeling that we’ve come off looking just a little silly on the back of this flare-up.
Just my two cents - best wishes to everyone.
Jonathan 

Dr. Jonathan Walley
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Cinema
Denison University
walleyj at denison.edu

> On Sep 26, 2015, at 12:20 PM, Francisco Torres <fjtorrespr at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> ''Is it really that much of an instant gratification generation that you get in, judge, and get out so quickly?''
> Millennials...There should be a horror movie titled ''Children of the Yuppies''.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 2015-09-26 3:46 GMT-04:00 Dave Tetzlaff <djtet53 at gmail.com <mailto:djtet53 at gmail.com>>:
> Francisco Torres wrote:
> 
>>> I figured it couldn't be that bad, that I could surely draw inspiration from artists with a lifetime of experience, and that it could enrich my practice and inspire me.
>> 
>> Do people really talk like THAT? Is this guy for real?
> 
> Hmmm. Maybe not. Could be a troll post: a parody of a spoiled millenial squawk writing style intended to get older FRAMEWORKERS to react with dyspeptic curmudgeonous, and the author is sitting back giggling at the thread. Googling 'Jona Gerlach' yields no likely suspect for the post: just a Facebook page of a student in Germany with no apparent interest in film (and the post doesn't read as ESL), and a Twitter account with all of two short original tweets, both apparently snarky replies to existing threads: "you just broke the toilet" and "really excited about the hookers". But maybe it's a fake of a different kind... 
> 
> The thing is, I don't know why anyone who's heard about FRAMEWORKS "from many sources" would imagine this is a place to "draw inspiration from artists with a lifetime of experience" yada yada yada, or that ANY listserv would offer such an experience. Posts that discuss the ART of experimental film only show up here once in a blue moon. That's natural. It's a deep subject, and email lists are filled with short quickly fired-off little notes on stuff that doesn't take a lot of time to think about. We get announcements, tech questions, requests to fill out silly lists of films fitting some vague and over-broad one-line definition...
> 
> If you want inspirational substance, you watch the damn films (get hip to bit-torrent of you don't live near NY, London, or some other cultural capital), read Scott MacDonald's interview collections, Google the websites that have actual critical essays discussing relevant filmmakers... 
> 
> I honestly can't imagine thin-skinned millenial cry babies would even know what a LISTSERV is, much less lower themselves and take time away from Twitter and Instagram to read and post on one. Shit, Facebook is for dinosaurs, which makes us, I dunno, the promordial ooze of the information age or something.
> 
> Now, perhaps Sasha Janerus -- who Google reveals to be an actual person in the NYC film scene, having curated a couple screenings co-sponsored by MFW (assuming the post to which 'Jona' replied is from that 'real Sasha Janerus' -- one never knows) -- would have some insight on who might respond to her post under a pseudonym, to complain about 'negativity, people being shamed and attacked over the most innocuous things, old grudges and hostilities...' and call for us all to unite together into a flying wedge charging the enemies of experimental film. Like bitching at FRAMEWORKERS and unsubscribing after two hours is a step in that direction. 
> 
> Maybe somebody associated with Millenium is a little butt-hurt at Janerus's allegations? 
> 
> Somebody who's been a party to old grudges and hostilities, even?
> 
> Is it just me, or is it more than "innocuous" if someone is "grifting" around phantom remains of one of the most important institutions in the history of our obscure little corner of artistic practice? 
> 
> I know bupkis about doings at MFW, present or past, so Janerus's post could be nothing more than gossipy shade for all I know. But someone trying to present such matters as "innocuous", rather than just calling out Janerus for being full of BS, makes me wonder if those doing are indeed not innocuous at all. 
> 
> [Seriously, I don't shit about any of these people or the history at issue. I just 'smell' ... something... in the words of the exchange. I just got off jury duty, and my sniffer may be over-sensitized as a result. So if I'm showing a bit of unwarranted paranoia here, forgive me...  but with the craze for The Donald still being A Thing, dark imaginings do tend to run through the mind, eh?]
> 
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