New York AIDS Film Festival terminated (Sept, 17-13)

Advertising the attendance of Hollywood luminaries Jack Valenti, Meryl Streep, and Mike Nichols who was supposed to receive an award for ‘Angels in America’ did not help the second edition of the New York AIDS Film Festival to stay afloat. After limping along for several days since its opening on September 17, the festival died before the final gala event took place. Rubinstein, its public relations agency, blames “logistic reasons” for the termination. In less diplomatic terms, the organizers could not pay the festival’s bills at the upscale Henry Hudson Hotel where it took place, a favorite among New York’s hip hop crowd.

The AIDS Film Festival and its demise will hardly be missed. This year the festival featured only seventeen films and documentaries, including some outstanding new work such as the Self Destruction of [supermodel] Gia Garangi and numerous productions shown before, like The Event, Angels in America, Heavy Traffic etc,. As it happened in the 2003 AIDS festival edition, there was n virtually no audience in the screening rooms, the programming schedule improvised, seminars cancelled and speakers and ‘jury’ members as well as ‘partners’ listed without their knowledge. Journalists were not allowed access to the AIDS film fest unless they paid to see productions yet did not receive adequate information about the programs shown. In the growing sector of specialty film festivals entered by many semi-professionals without a proper media background, the blatant disregard of the New York AIDS film festival organizers for basic programming and common sense is certainly outstanding.

The festival has not met its objective of generating funds for the important African Action on AIDS group and similar organizations. It ran a large deficit last year and apparently a similar one this year before the Henry Hudson Hotel pulled the plug. The social events book ending the festival with the “The Red Ball” opening the fest which required women to wear red ball gown dresses and the final Hollywood celebrity-stacked event did not generate the hoped for corporate funds. Further this emphasis on the soft part of the fest sharply contrasted with the serious nature of the worsening HIV/AIDS pandemic depicted in the productions shown. Much good will for AIDS projects was destroyed through the mismanagement of this festival, which some observers considered to have been an ill advised attempt to profit from the rapidly growing HIV/AIDS industry.


Claus Mueller, Correspondent
cmueller@hunter.cuny.edu