27 March 2007
Honorable Mayor Tom Bates
And the Berkeley City Council
2180 Milvia Street
Berkeley, CA 94704
Dear Mayor Bates and
Berkeley City Council Members:
The Film Arts Foundation is a national service organization whose mission is to support independent filmmakers and filmmaking throughout our nation.
Headquartered in San Francisco, Film Arts produces a range of on-going programs and services for its membership and the movie-loving public. With a current membership roster in the several thousand, and a sponsorship portfolio of 240, it is the largest fiscal sponsor of independent filmmakers from sources like the National Endowment for the Arts in the country.
The crown jewel of our community is centered in Berkeley, California in the Saul Zaentz Media Center, at 10th & Parker. Of our 30 Academy-nominated films and members, this Film Arts cohort represent more than a thirteen of those accolades. They also have had their work represented in all of the most prestigious film festivals and series in the world. They collectively, are the most globally recognized artistic export that the City of Berkeley has been the beneficiary of in the cultural arena. Due to the medium of expression these artists have chosen, film media, their work has been seen by and influenced hundreds of millions of people. It would be a tragedy to have their collective wisdom, profile and influence vanish from your city. It would be a huge opportunity lost by your city to capitalize on potential economic impact gains & a raised PR profile of such an entity.
It is our hope that you would use your significant influence in this important sector of the city to allow this group of businesses to transition and rebuild at another location in Berkeley.
We hope you will give the Independent Documentary Community your support.
Sincerely,
Eric Hayashi
Eric Hayashi
Executive Director
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Fantasy Building - Fictions and Facts
Fiction: Wareham continually talks “bringing up rents to market level after years of patronage by former owner Saul Zaentz.”
Fact: Current Tenants Pay above market rates now and have for 2 years.
In early 2005, the standard room with a window in the Fantasy Building was renting for $2.00/square foot, which was at or even slightly above market level at the time. In May, 2005, in preparation for the sale of the building, rents for those same rooms were raised across the board, to $3.00/sf for some rooms, $3.25 for others—increases of 50 and 63 percent. The proposed rent increases by Wareham bump those already-inflated rents to between $4.00 and $6.00 per square foot (see attached spreadsheet). Comparable West Berkeley rental rates run today no higher than $2.00 per square foot. Wareham’s increases that run $4 to $6 per square foot are double and triple market level. Such rents price us, and artists like us, out of the building.
Fiction: Wareham continually miss-represents their raises as 10% raises.
Fact: Tenants will be raised 30% – 100%
The 10% raise is for six months only, and only if the tenant signs a long-term lease. It is a come-on and a public relations ploy. Their typical raises are 25% after six months, and 40% by October 2008. Not only that, but even the 10% rises for the first 6 months are not consistent. Some tenants have to bear up to 18% raises during the initial period (see attached spreadsheet).
Fiction: Wareham’s Tim Gallen says, “We have to upgrade the theater if we want to attract people doing work for Hollywood people.”
Fact: Hollywood already uses our screening rooms.
Hollywood has been using the building’s screening rooms for years, for Academy Awards nomination screenings and other industry events. Wareham’s claim is just another of the developer’s justification for a big rent increase.
Fiction: Wareham talks about being “proud” of the filmmakers that are here and insists that their plans to make a “world-class media center” include the world-class media-makers that are already here.
Fact: Wareham plans media center devoid of any input from World Class media makers.
On January 24, the day after they bought the building, Wareham began construction and renovation on the front of the building. They are priding themselves on an intensive plan to renovate and upgrade the screening rooms (which we are not allow to use except when paying a fee which we have no idea how high that will be). Not once did they consult with the current filmmaking tenants on what major building improvements might we want, might we need, might improve our filmmaking environment. (Certainly a large fountain plaza in front of the building, which takes away our parking spaces, is not high on the list of any filmmaking tenant.) If they really valued what we do and how we work, the new owners would consult with us, strategize with us, and work with us.
Filmmaker's Biographies
CONNIE FIELD
Producer/Director Connie Field has worked on numerous dramatic and documentary films as well as independently producing her own work. Her feature documentary, “Freedom on My Mind” (1994) is a history of the civil rights movement in Mississippi. It was nominated for an Academy Award; won the Grand Jury Prize for best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival; Best of Northern California, National Educational Film Festival; Erik Barnouw Award, Organization of American Historians; John O’Connor Award, American Historical Association; Distinguished Documentary Award, International Documentary Association; National Educational Association Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Learning through Broadcasting; and was released theatrically and named “One of the Ten Best Films” of 1994 by a variety of film critics, including the San Francisco Examiner and The Oakland Tribune. It was broadcast on “The American Experience”. She was a member of Boston Newsreel Films where she worked on productions and distribution. She was a director on “Forever Activists” (1990 Academy Award Nominee), and she produced, directed and edited the feature documentary “The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter” (1981). “Rosie” earned fifteen international awards for Best Documentary (including Gold Hugo, Chicago; John Grierson, Blue Ribbon, American International Festival; Golden Marazzo, Festival dei Popoli; Gold Award, Houston; Cine Golden Eagle; Golden Athena, Athens Festival; British Academy Award Nominee), was released theatrically and was named “One of the Ten Best Films of the Year” by a number of publications, including the Village Voice and Film Comment, was voted “Best Independent Feature of the Year” in American Film Magazine, was translated into twenty different languages; and is listed in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. It was broadcast on “The American Experience”. As president of Clarity Educational Productions (which distributed “Rosie” and “Freedom” both domestically and internationally), Field is also experienced in the world of distribution with extensive contacts to educational, theatrical and television distributors worldwide. She is a recipient of the John Grierson Award as most outstanding social documentarian, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. She is currently in post production on other episodes of “Have You Heard From Johannesburg”(2006), a doc series on the international effort to end apartheid in South Africa whose episode 4, “Apartheid and the Club of the West,” won Best Documentary, from the Canadian Film Board at the Vancouver Film Festival: and from The Pan African Film Festival and has just completed a new documentary, "¡Salud!" on Cuba’s role in the struggle for global health equity (Audience Award, Pan African Film Festival). She is a member of the Film Arts Foundation, The International Documentary Association and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
MAUREEN GOSLING
Maureen Gosling has been a documentary filmmaker for more than thirty years and is best known for her twenty-year collaboration with independent director, Les Blank (Burden of Dreams, Yum, Yum, Yum!, Garlic Is As Good as Ten Mothers). Gosling has also been sought after as an editor, working with such directors as Jed Riffe (California’s “Lost” Tribes, Waiting to Inhale), Tom Weidlinger (Heart of the Congo, A Dream in Hanoi, Boys Will Be Men), Ashley James (Bomba, Dancing the Drum). Gosling’s 16mm feature documentary Blossoms Of Fire, on the legendary Zapotecs of southern Oaxaca, Mexico, won the Coral Award for Best Foreign Documentary at the Havana International Film Festival. The film was also broadcast on HBO Latino. Gosling’s current projects are Bamako Chic:Women Cloth Dyers of Mali; and No Mouse Music: The Story of Chris Strachwitz and Arhoolie Records. Productions at Fantasy: produced, directed and edited Blossoms of Fire and Sketches of Juchitán 1992; edited Bomba: Dancing the Drum, California’s “Lost” Tribes, Waiting to Inhale, Somos (producer, María Burés).
JUSTINE SHAPIRO
ANN HERSHEY
RICK GOLDSMITH
Rick Goldsmith, produced, directed, edited and co-wrote the Academy-Award nominated documentary feature "Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press," a piercing look at censorship and suppression in American journalism. It won awards at several film festivals, was broadcast nationwide on public television and cablecast on the Sundance Channel. Goldsmith also co-produced and co-directed "Everyday Heroes." He was writer and editor, and won a Cine Golden Eagle award, for "Soul of Justice: Thelton Henderson’s American Journey," a documentary film on the pioneering and controversial African-American jurist.
JUDY EHRLICH
DEAF MEDIA, INC.
ALAN SNITOW
DEBORAH KAUFMAN
N. JED RIFFE
Jed Riffe is an award-winning independent filmmaker and new media producer. He is best known as the producer and director of "Ishi, the Last Yahi." The highly acclaimed dramatic documentary won “Best Documentary” awards at eight major national and international film festivals. "Ishi, the Last Yahi" was released theatrically and acquired for national broadcast by the PBS series The American Experience. Riffe produced and directed "Waiting to Inhale," the acclaimed feature length dramatic documentary on the controversial movement to legalize marijuana as a medicine. "Waiting to Inhale" has won three “Best Documentary” awards and a CINE Golden Eagle. The film is currently being screened in festivals across the US, Canada and Australia. According to Robert W. Butler, Entertainment writer in the Kansas City Star: “Jed Riffe's documentary ostensibly is about medical marijuana and the individuals who require it to ease a variety of ailments. But it's also a methodical and damning denunciation of this country's drug policy.” Riffe is Series Producer of California and the American Dream, a four-hour independently produced nationally broadcast PBS Series. Riffe produced, directed and co-wrote the Series’ opening episode California’s ”Lost” Tribes with co-producer Jack Kohler and editor and co-writer Maureen Gosling. Riffe produced the fourth episode, Ripe for Change with Emiko Omori who also directed. Jed Riffe and digital designer Emrah Oral created two websites for the series and , and produced four enhanced DVDs. Riffe and digital guru Emrah Oral are currently producing four interactive kiosks for the Series initiative Public Broadcasting in Public Places funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Other documentary films produced and directed by Jed Riffe include Who Owns the Past?, an hour-long, award-winning dramatic documentary on the American Indian struggle for control of their ancestral remains (Independent Lens-PBS). Rosebud to Dallas, an hour-long documentary on the relocation of American Indians (PBS). Promise and Practice, an hour-long documentary on redlining of inner city neighborhoods (PBS). Riffe directed the super 16MM and HDCAM shoots for Grotte de Chauvet, a documentary on the story behind the oldest cave paintings on earth in the south of France. Riffe line produced Convention, a feature film written by Norman Solomon and lensed in HDCAM by Vicente Franco. Riffe also produced an HDCAM shoot on the Rio Negro for Brazilian director Luiz Lobo’s series Amazonia: Mother of Nature. Riffe produced the video elements for a three-station, touch screen, interactive multi-cultural history of California for the Oakland Museum. In 2001, Riffe was awarded a Gerbode Fellowship. He is a member of the Film Arts Foundation, Bay Area Video Coalition and the International Documentary Association.
Producer/Director Connie Field has worked on numerous dramatic and documentary films as well as independently producing her own work. Her feature documentary, “Freedom on My Mind” (1994) is a history of the civil rights movement in Mississippi. It was nominated for an Academy Award; won the Grand Jury Prize for best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival; Best of Northern California, National Educational Film Festival; Erik Barnouw Award, Organization of American Historians; John O’Connor Award, American Historical Association; Distinguished Documentary Award, International Documentary Association; National Educational Association Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Learning through Broadcasting; and was released theatrically and named “One of the Ten Best Films” of 1994 by a variety of film critics, including the San Francisco Examiner and The Oakland Tribune. It was broadcast on “The American Experience”. She was a member of Boston Newsreel Films where she worked on productions and distribution. She was a director on “Forever Activists” (1990 Academy Award Nominee), and she produced, directed and edited the feature documentary “The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter” (1981). “Rosie” earned fifteen international awards for Best Documentary (including Gold Hugo, Chicago; John Grierson, Blue Ribbon, American International Festival; Golden Marazzo, Festival dei Popoli; Gold Award, Houston; Cine Golden Eagle; Golden Athena, Athens Festival; British Academy Award Nominee), was released theatrically and was named “One of the Ten Best Films of the Year” by a number of publications, including the Village Voice and Film Comment, was voted “Best Independent Feature of the Year” in American Film Magazine, was translated into twenty different languages; and is listed in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. It was broadcast on “The American Experience”. As president of Clarity Educational Productions (which distributed “Rosie” and “Freedom” both domestically and internationally), Field is also experienced in the world of distribution with extensive contacts to educational, theatrical and television distributors worldwide. She is a recipient of the John Grierson Award as most outstanding social documentarian, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. She is currently in post production on other episodes of “Have You Heard From Johannesburg”(2006), a doc series on the international effort to end apartheid in South Africa whose episode 4, “Apartheid and the Club of the West,” won Best Documentary, from the Canadian Film Board at the Vancouver Film Festival: and from The Pan African Film Festival and has just completed a new documentary, "¡Salud!" on Cuba’s role in the struggle for global health equity (Audience Award, Pan African Film Festival). She is a member of the Film Arts Foundation, The International Documentary Association and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
MAUREEN GOSLING
Maureen Gosling has been a documentary filmmaker for more than thirty years and is best known for her twenty-year collaboration with independent director, Les Blank (Burden of Dreams, Yum, Yum, Yum!, Garlic Is As Good as Ten Mothers). Gosling has also been sought after as an editor, working with such directors as Jed Riffe (California’s “Lost” Tribes, Waiting to Inhale), Tom Weidlinger (Heart of the Congo, A Dream in Hanoi, Boys Will Be Men), Ashley James (Bomba, Dancing the Drum). Gosling’s 16mm feature documentary Blossoms Of Fire, on the legendary Zapotecs of southern Oaxaca, Mexico, won the Coral Award for Best Foreign Documentary at the Havana International Film Festival. The film was also broadcast on HBO Latino. Gosling’s current projects are Bamako Chic:Women Cloth Dyers of Mali; and No Mouse Music: The Story of Chris Strachwitz and Arhoolie Records. Productions at Fantasy: produced, directed and edited Blossoms of Fire and Sketches of Juchitán 1992; edited Bomba: Dancing the Drum, California’s “Lost” Tribes, Waiting to Inhale, Somos (producer, María Burés).
JUSTINE SHAPIRO
Justine Shapiro is an Academy Award-nominated, Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and television host. As host of the PBS travel series GlobeTrekker, Justine has traveled off the beaten track to over 35 countries in 10 years, delivering her spontaneous reflections to a global audience of 40 million. Justine’s award-winning 2001 feature documentary Promises was released in theaters and broadcast nationally on PBS. Justine developed a powerful educational outreach program for Promises, which continues to serve as a springboard for discussing conflict resolution and the Palestinian/Israeli conflict in high schools and universities. In 2001, Justine gave birth to a son and entered the world of motherhood with joy, wonder and confusion. Accustomed to looking for guidance in the wisdom of other cultures, Justine was surprised to discover that aside from ethnographic studies, films exploring child rearing around the world did not exist. Thus the idea for The Global Moms Project was born.
ANN HERSHEY
Ann Hershey (Producer/Director/Editor) began as an Associate Producer for the Public Affairs Department at CBS, KPIX, Channel 5 in San Francisco in the 1970’s. She produced Public Affairs programming, documentary films and was Assistant to the Public Affairs Director for four years. She was recognized as one of two respected women cinematographers in the city. (The other was Emiko!) She began her independent documentary film career with "Mrs. Teabottle Meets Mr. Magic," about an interracial friendship among two pre-adolescents. Her second film was the award-winning, “Never Give Up - Imogen Cunningham” about the legendary San Francisco photographer. Ann taught "Woman as a Creative Agent" with Allie Light, at SF State University in one of the first women's studies classes offered there. Ann has produced, directed, shot and edited two other award-winning personal documentaries, "The Awakening of Nancy Kaye," about a disabled woman hired as Director of Special Education in the Berkeley schools who died of cancer, and Positive Women, women with HIV who wrote and performed a theater piece based on their experiences. From 1987 through 1992, Ann created the video production department of the Shanti Project, a San Francisco AIDS agency where she produced over 45 training videos and Public Service Announcements. Ann has created numerous documentaries for non-profit groups and organizations, maintaining a steady output of professional work through the years. She has also worked on many of her independent film/video colleagues’ projects, among them, "Rachel’s Daughters - a Search for the Causes of Breast Cancer” (Allie Light and Irving Saraf, producers), "Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter" (Deborah Hoffmann, producer), and "Long Night’s Journey Into Day" by Frances Reid and Deborah Hoffmann. Ann is now completing a major documentary about the life and times of writer/activist Tillie Olsen, who died on New Year's Day at the age of 94.
RICK GOLDSMITH
Rick Goldsmith, produced, directed, edited and co-wrote the Academy-Award nominated documentary feature "Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press," a piercing look at censorship and suppression in American journalism. It won awards at several film festivals, was broadcast nationwide on public television and cablecast on the Sundance Channel. Goldsmith also co-produced and co-directed "Everyday Heroes." He was writer and editor, and won a Cine Golden Eagle award, for "Soul of Justice: Thelton Henderson’s American Journey," a documentary film on the pioneering and controversial African-American jurist.
JUDY EHRLICH
Judith Ehrlich co-produced and co-directed the award winning ITVS documentary, "The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It," a story of men guided by principle to take the unpopular position of pacifism in the face of World War II. This revealing look at questions of war, conscience, activism won both major US history film awards in 2003. Ehrlich has made prize-winning educational films for two decades on subjects of the peace movement, education, citizen participation and low-income housing. Ehrlich is a graduate of UC Berkeley and teaches Documentary Film at Berkeley City College. She is Artist-in-Residence at SFSU Osher Lifelong Learning Institute for 2007.
DEAF MEDIA, INC.
Established in 1974, DEAF Media, Inc., is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to advocating for Deaf arts and to developing cultural, educational, and professional opportunities for the Deaf community. This mission is accomplished through television production, live performance, community events and special programming done in partnership with Bay Area cultural institutions, such as the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums—de Young & Legion of Honor, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Oakland Museum of California; as well as through technical assistance to the film and television industry. Though the organization is based in Berkeley and focuses its services on Northern California, many DEAF Media projects—including PBS's Rainbow’s End and with UC Berkeley our “Celebration: Deaf Artists and Performers” —have had national scope and created international impact, bringing the organization multiple awards for innovation and excellence, including 3 Emmy Awards, 2 California Governor’s Media Access Awards, a US Constitution Bicentennial Commission Exemplary Programming Award among others.
DEAF Media’s Executive Director—Dr. Susan Rutherford
Dr. Susan Rutherford has been the Executive Director of DEAF Media since 1980. She is the producer of DEAF Media’s television and video projects, Rainbow’s End (PBS) and American Culture: The Deaf Perspective (PBS), as well as its live programming. Dr. Rutherford also created the country's first university level course on Deaf Culture, which she taught at the University of California-Berkeley for 25 years
DEAF Media’s Executive Director—Dr. Susan Rutherford
Dr. Susan Rutherford has been the Executive Director of DEAF Media since 1980. She is the producer of DEAF Media’s television and video projects, Rainbow’s End (PBS) and American Culture: The Deaf Perspective (PBS), as well as its live programming. Dr. Rutherford also created the country's first university level course on Deaf Culture, which she taught at the University of California-Berkeley for 25 years
ALAN SNITOW
Alan Snitow is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist. His films include "Ezekiel's Wheels," “Thirst”, “Secrets of Silicon Valley”, and “Blacks and Jews”. He is co-author of "Thirst: Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water." Prior to founding Snitow-Kaufman Productions, he was a News Producer for Bay Area Fox affiliate KTVU-TV for 12 years. As News Director at the Bay Area Pacifica Radio station KPFA-FM, he won a Corporation for Public Broadcasting Gold Award for Best Local Newscast. He is a graduate of Cornell University and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
DEBORAH KAUFMAN
Deborah Kaufman is a film producer and director whose documentaries "Ezekiel's Wheels," “Thirst”, “Secrets of Silicon Valley” and “Blacks and Jews” have been broadcast on PBS and throughout Europe and Asia. She is co-author of "Thirst: Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water." She founded and was, for 14 years, Director of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the first and largest festival of its kind. A noted activist for human rights and social justice issues, Kaufman is an attorney and member of the California State Bar.
N. JED RIFFE
Jed Riffe is an award-winning independent filmmaker and new media producer. He is best known as the producer and director of "Ishi, the Last Yahi." The highly acclaimed dramatic documentary won “Best Documentary” awards at eight major national and international film festivals. "Ishi, the Last Yahi" was released theatrically and acquired for national broadcast by the PBS series The American Experience. Riffe produced and directed "Waiting to Inhale," the acclaimed feature length dramatic documentary on the controversial movement to legalize marijuana as a medicine. "Waiting to Inhale" has won three “Best Documentary” awards and a CINE Golden Eagle. The film is currently being screened in festivals across the US, Canada and Australia. According to Robert W. Butler, Entertainment writer in the Kansas City Star: “Jed Riffe's documentary ostensibly is about medical marijuana and the individuals who require it to ease a variety of ailments. But it's also a methodical and damning denunciation of this country's drug policy.” Riffe is Series Producer of California and the American Dream, a four-hour independently produced nationally broadcast PBS Series. Riffe produced, directed and co-wrote the Series’ opening episode California’s ”Lost” Tribes with co-producer Jack Kohler and editor and co-writer Maureen Gosling. Riffe produced the fourth episode, Ripe for Change with Emiko Omori who also directed. Jed Riffe and digital designer Emrah Oral created two websites for the series
ITVS letter of support
To:
Wareham Development
Honorable Tom Bates, Mayor
Berkeley City Council
From:
Sally Fifer, President & CEO
Lois Vossen, Vice President, Independent Lens Series Producer
Claire Aguilar, Vice President of Programming
Mary Ann Thyken, Vice President of Production
Re: Filmmakers housed at the Fantasy Building
On behalf of the Board of Directors and the staff at the Independent Television Service (ITVS), we urge you to find a reasonable and equitable compromise to assist the group of filmmakers who are currently housed at the Fantasy building.
ITVS was created in 1991 by an historic act of Congress to bring diverse, high-quality programs by independent producers to public television. With a funding allocation from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, ITVS has brought over 600 programs to PBS and currently provides over 60 hours of programming annually to public television, including the largest independent film series on television, Independent Lens.
Our country's independent filmmakers are critical to the mission of public media--and an irreplaceable resource for the Bay Area, which is home to the best and most diverse documentary talent in the country. We have worked with many of the filmmakers who are tenants in the Fantasy building; they represent not only the lifeblood of the Bay Area documentary community but the pride of American independent filmmaking. We hope that you will support them in their efforts to stay in the Fantasy building and continue their groundbreaking work.
SF/em
Wareham Development
Honorable Tom Bates, Mayor
Berkeley City Council
From:
Sally Fifer, President & CEO
Lois Vossen, Vice President, Independent Lens Series Producer
Claire Aguilar, Vice President of Programming
Mary Ann Thyken, Vice President of Production
Re: Filmmakers housed at the Fantasy Building
On behalf of the Board of Directors and the staff at the Independent Television Service (ITVS), we urge you to find a reasonable and equitable compromise to assist the group of filmmakers who are currently housed at the Fantasy building.
ITVS was created in 1991 by an historic act of Congress to bring diverse, high-quality programs by independent producers to public television. With a funding allocation from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, ITVS has brought over 600 programs to PBS and currently provides over 60 hours of programming annually to public television, including the largest independent film series on television, Independent Lens.
Our country's independent filmmakers are critical to the mission of public media--and an irreplaceable resource for the Bay Area, which is home to the best and most diverse documentary talent in the country. We have worked with many of the filmmakers who are tenants in the Fantasy building; they represent not only the lifeblood of the Bay Area documentary community but the pride of American independent filmmaking. We hope that you will support them in their efforts to stay in the Fantasy building and continue their groundbreaking work.
SF/em
ASIFA-San Francisco letter of support
Dear Karen and the other tenants in the former Saul Zaentz Media Center building,
As president of ASIFA-San Francisco, the Bay Area's Animation Association, I am glad to lend our name in your fight to preserve reasonable rents and to keep the building haven for film professionals. We are running this brief news item in our April newsletter that is mailed to our 300 members and read in an e-mail edition by several thousand friends of animation.
ANIMATORS CAN FORGET ABOUT THIS BUILDING AS A PLACE FOR REASONABLE RENTS IN BERKELEY. Longtime ASIFA-SF member Karen Folger Jacobs has been renting an office at the Saul Zaentz Media Center (part of Fantasy Records) for 18 years and had reasonable rent. She says that now that Saul Zaentz has sold the building, rents are going up, doubling in some cases.
As this newsletter was about to go to press I received a press release saying that 40 leading independent filmmakers have asked the mayor of Berkeley to intervene in this matter.
Please keep us informed of future developments.
Karl Cohen
As president of ASIFA-San Francisco, the Bay Area's Animation Association, I am glad to lend our name in your fight to preserve reasonable rents and to keep the building haven for film professionals. We are running this brief news item in our April newsletter that is mailed to our 300 members and read in an e-mail edition by several thousand friends of animation.
ANIMATORS CAN FORGET ABOUT THIS BUILDING AS A PLACE FOR REASONABLE RENTS IN BERKELEY. Longtime ASIFA-SF member Karen Folger Jacobs has been renting an office at the Saul Zaentz Media Center (part of Fantasy Records) for 18 years and had reasonable rent. She says that now that Saul Zaentz has sold the building, rents are going up, doubling in some cases.
As this newsletter was about to go to press I received a press release saying that 40 leading independent filmmakers have asked the mayor of Berkeley to intervene in this matter.
Please keep us informed of future developments.
Karl Cohen
Partial Film List of Tenants
This is a partial list of films that were produced by tenants at the Saul Zaentz Media Center. Many of the films have had theatrical releases and all have had domestic and international broadcast, been viewed at festivals around the world, and distributed for educational purposes. The complete awards for each film are too lengthy to list.
Freedom On My Mind Connie Field, Marilyn Mulford
Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winner & Academy Award Nominee
Daughter from Danang Gail Dolgin, Vicente Franco
Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winner & Academy Award Nominee
Long Night’s Journey into Day Frances Reid, Deborah Hoffmann
Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winner & Academy Award Nominee
Days of Waiting Steven Okazaki
Academy Award Winner
Forever Activists Judy Montell
Academy Award Nominee
Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter Deborah Hoffman
Academy Award Nominee
Tell the Truth and Run Rick Goldsmith
Academy Award Nominee
Promises Justine Shapiro, B.Z. Goldsmith, Carlos Bolado
Academy Award Nominee
The Mushroom Club Steven Okazaki
Academy Award Nominee
Super Chief: The Life and Legacy of Earl Warren Bill Jersey
Academy Award Nominee
Straight from the Heart Frances Reid
Academy Award Nominee
Berkeley in the 60’s Mark Kitchell*
Academy Award Nominee
Waldo Salt Eugene Corr & Robert Hillmann*
Academy Award Nominee
Unfinished Business Steven Okazaki
Academy Award Nominee
A Time For Burning Bill Jersey
Academy Award Nominee
OTHER FILMS / AWARD WINNERS (Peabody, Emmy, DuPont, etc.)
Orozco: Man of Fire Laurie Coyle, Rick Tejada-Flores
Jonestown: The Life and Death of the Peoples Temple Stanley Nelson
Apartheid And The Club Of The West (HYHFJ #4) Connie Field
The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It Judy Ehrlich, Rick Tejada-Flores
Thirst Deborah Kaufman, Alan Snitow
White Light/Black Rain Steven Okazaki
Soul of Justice: Thelton Henderson’s American Journey Abby Ginzberg
Bomba: Dancing the Drum Kathrine Golden, Ashley James
Roam Sweet Home Vivian Kleiman
The Summer of Love – SF 1967 Gail Dolgin, Vicente Franco
Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man Avon Kirkland
Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin Nancy Kates
Race is the Place Rick Tejada-Flores, Ray Telles
The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow Bill Jersey
Across Time And Space Kathrine Golden, Ashley James
Maquilopolis Vivian Kleiman
The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez & the Farmworkers Rick Tejada-Flores, Ray Telles
We Love You Like A Rock Kathrine Golden, Ashley James
First Person Plural Vivian Kleiman
Ishi: The Last Yahi Jed Riffe
Ending Aids: The Search For A Vaccine Bill Jersey
The Key of G Vivian Kleiman
The Life & Times of Rosie the Riveter Connie Field
Northern Ireland: Uneasy Peace Niall McKay
San Francisco Arts Are All Over The Map! Kathrine Golden, Ashley James
The Fire this Time Vivian Kleiman
Cuba Va Gail Dolgin, Vicente Franco
Waiting to Inhale: Medical Marijuana Jed Riffe
Chicano Park Marilyn Mulford
Blacks and Jews Deborah Kaufman, Alan Snitow
Color Adjustment Vivian Kleiman
Breathtaking Women Karen Folger Jacobs
Tongues Untied Marlon Riggs**
California and the American Dream Series Jed Riffe
Children of Violence Bill Jersey
Kitka and Davka in Concert Kathrine Golden, Ashley James
Who Owns the Past Jed Riffe
Forgotten Fires Vivian Kleiman
Black is, Black Ain’t Marlon Riggs**
Campus Battleground Bill Jersey
Rivera in America Rick Tejada-Flores
¡Salud! Connie Field
Home and Almost Free - The Changing Face of Parole Kathrine Golden, Ashley James
The Glory And The Power Bill Jersey
Blossoms of Fire Maureen Gosling
Surviving Breast Cancer Karen Folger Jacobs
The Undiscovered Explorer: Imagining York (radio program) Claire Schoen
(one of twenty national public radio documentaries)
IN PRODUCTION
Tillie Olsen Story Anne Hershey
Have You Heard From Johannesburg? (six feature stories) Connie Field
Archeology of Memory Quique Cruz, Marilyn Mulford
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg Judy Ehrlich, Rick Goldsmith
Children of the Amazon Denise Zmekhol
No Mouse Music! The Story of Chris Strachwitz & Arhoolie Records Maureen Gosling
I Can’t Stop Loving You in My Heart: Love and Down Syndrome Bonnie Burt
The Global Moms Film Project Justine Shapiro
Dancing With Saigon Kathrine Golden, Ashley James
The Bass Player Niall McKay
Little Manila: Filipinos in America’s Heartland Marissa Aroy
Bamako Chic: Women Cloth Dyers of Mali Maureen Gosling
Packin' Up Kathrine Golden, Ashley James
* Former Tenant
** Deceased
Have You Heard From Johannesburg? (six feature stories) Connie Field
Archeology of Memory Quique Cruz, Marilyn Mulford
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg Judy Ehrlich, Rick Goldsmith
Children of the Amazon Denise Zmekhol
No Mouse Music! The Story of Chris Strachwitz & Arhoolie Records Maureen Gosling
I Can’t Stop Loving You in My Heart: Love and Down Syndrome Bonnie Burt
The Global Moms Film Project Justine Shapiro
Dancing With Saigon Kathrine Golden, Ashley James
The Bass Player Niall McKay
Little Manila: Filipinos in America’s Heartland Marissa Aroy
Bamako Chic: Women Cloth Dyers of Mali Maureen Gosling
Packin' Up Kathrine Golden, Ashley James
ORGANIZATIONS
DEAF Media, Inc Susan RutherfordEstablished in 1974, DEAF Media, Inc., is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to advocating for Deaf arts and to developing cultural, educational, and professional opportunities for the Deaf community. Though the organization is based in Berkeley and focuses its services on Northern California, many DEAF Media projects-including PBS's Rainbow's End and with UC Berkeley our "Celebration: Deaf Artists and Performers" -have had national scope and created international impact, bringing the organization multiple awards for innovation and excellence, including 3 Emmy Awards, 2 California Governor's Media Access Awards, a US Constitution Bicentennial Commission Exemplary Programming Award among others.
* Former Tenant
** Deceased
Jewish Film Festival letter of support
JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL
March 26, 2007
To members of the press, city officials, and the public:
As the Executive Director of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, I write in support of the illustrious group of filmmakers who are tenants at the Saul Zaentz Film Center, also known as the Fantasy Building. Our organization has been closely aligned with the media community at the Fantasy Building for many years, as we were among the original tenants who moved from shared space in Emeryville to the Fantasy Building in 1985.
This community of filmmakers is known throughout the world for making important, groundbreaking documentaries; we have shown many of their films at the Jewish Film Festival and have celebrated their accomplishments with them. The Fantasy tenants have produced 14 Academy Award-nominated documentaries over the past two decades.
But this community is under immediate threat from Wareham Properties, the new owner of the building: if tenants do not immediately sign new leases containing substantial rent increases, they will be evicted in the next few weeks. The result would be a disaster for a community that has been together for the past 22 years. The fragile ecology of the Bay Area independent filmmaking world can ill afford such a blow. We must learn from the painful lessons that San Francisco experienced with the dispersion of its dance community during the dot-com boom: networks of working artists are an irreplaceable urban resource.
While we were tenants in the building, from 1985 to 2002, we greatly benefited from the inter-relationships that arose from being in proximity to other film professionals. It was because of the informal relationships that develop by sharing a hallway, a kitchen or bathroom that ideas are shared and projects bloom. Several filmmakers in the building added specific Jewish content to their films at our urging, opening up a whole new audience for documentary films. For example, while she was making Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter, we urged Deborah Hoffmann to include references to her mother’s Jewish identity. Her film was wildly successful on the Jewish Film Festival circuit, and was eventually nominated for an Academy Award.
Tenants at the Fantasy Building have enriched our work at the festival in a number of ways. Five current tenants have shown their films at the festival over the years, and several past and present board members are tenants in the building, including the Founding Director of the Jewish Film Festival, filmmaker Deborah Kaufman.
This Festival benefits, as do all the local film festivals, from the strength of the community of filmmakers at the Fantasy building. We strongly support their efforts to remain in the building at reasonable terms. It would be a great loss for the film community and the city of Berkeley and the San Francisco Bay Area if this longstanding group of incalculable merit were forced to disperse.
Sincerely.
Peter L. Stein
Executive Director
145 9th Street, #200 | San Francisco, CA | 94103 | 415.621.0566 | jewishfilm@sfjff.org | www.sfjff.org
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