War and independent filmmaker - Hollywood and corporate leaders' control of the distribution and presentation of films limits the work of independent filmmakers

Humanist, Sept-Oct, 1998 by Barbara Trent, Shelton Waldrep

I have spent most of the last ten years using video and film as a means of community organizing and as a tool for social change. In 1984, David Kasper and I founded the Empowerment Project, a media resource center that serves hundreds of independent video and filmmakers each year. We occasionally make videos and films ourselves and have made three documentaries on global issues that have been released internationally: Destination Nicaragua (1985), Coverup: Behind the Iran Contra Affair (1988), and The Panama Deception, which won the Academy Award for the best feature documentary of 1992. As a result of receiving this honor, we have had much more success bringing Panama's story to people around the world.

The experience of traveling with the film, however, has been an eye-opener. While participating in film festivals in Argentina, Panama, Mexico, Cuba, Canada, and Europe, I have never failed to see the names of large U.S. films splashed across billboards and in subway stations, overshadowing homegrown and independent productions. Having lived in Hollywood, where I became accustomed to seeing all of these advertisements, it was odd to walk through the streets of Argentina and see the same images placed next to words in a different language. I began to get a firsthand look at the international monopoly of the cinema and media worldwide.

Hollywood's impact on filmmakers throughout the world is quite amazing. For instance, those filmmakers who have won awards in Mexico similar or identical to the Academy Awards in the United States cannot find theaters in Mexico to release their films. Even though they are the top filmmakers in their country--and their films, in Spanish, don't require subtitles--they cannot find theaters. It is much too profitable for the theaters to continue showing films from Hollywood. This fact has had a grave impact on independent filmmaking. If people are not able to distribute their films, eventually they are not able to make them. This has been the result, to a great degree, in Latin America. Directors in these countries are still making fantastic films, but they are not able to produce anything near their capabilities because of Hollywood's financial stranglehold on the industry.

Even though we might try to fight that influence by attempting to release an independent film in the United States, it's a nightmarish experience. Theaters and video stores in this country are the only places where you can still release independent and uncensored media products. Television is so much more monopolized and content-controlled. To really saturate the country with any new information is almost impossible unless you own a network or a national cable station. Just as private theaters and independently run video stores are the only places where you can find pornography, they are the only places where you can find alternative political viewpoints. This is because, as yet, they are not fully censored.

In the United States, the relationship between theater chains and Hollywood studios is closer than many people might think. For example, at one point The Panama Deception ran in a theater multiplex on one of seven screens. Our film brought in more money than any of the other movies running there at the time: Whoopi Goldberg's Sister Act, 1492, and other big-budget Hollywood films. And yet, at the end of what we thought was an open run--where the theater continues to show the film as long as the grosses are good--Warner Brothers or someone called the theater and said, "We need a screen," and our movie was the one bounced because it was an independent film. We may not make another film for several years, but Warner Brothers is going to have another ready in two weeks, and another after that. When you read in the local papers, "Coming to theaters soon," you can believe it--no matter what it has to shove out and no matter how lucrative the film is that it's replacing. For me, these pressures--which have to be honored by the theaters --not only destroy our ability to coordinate our films' U.S. releases in any significant way but similarly inhibit independent filmmakers around the world.

The issue is one of censorship. I always tell the audiences to whom I speak that, although the United States has perhaps the freest press in the world, it's free only to the highest bidders, and we know who they are. For example, David Jones, the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and William Smith, the ex-U.S, attorney general, sit on the board of General Electric, which owns NBC. Meanwhile, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown help run CBS. The issue for me is not a free press but, rather, an independent and courageous one. We need such media outlets, and our lack of them is one of the most serious threats to our attempt at a participatory democracy. To look at how our democracy works in its present form, let's examine the case of The Panama Deception.

In 1988, Panama held an election. In advance of that election, Panamanians were getting news on a daily basis from the United States through Southern Command. The U.S. military's largest aggregation of weapons and personnel outside the continental United States, Southern Command operates a television broadcast station in Panama. News shows such as Nightline and other U.S. programming are beamed over this network. For two years, the Panamanians had been hearing on these broadcasts how evil their present government was and how devastated their country had become. As the election grew near, the problem, as reported by the U.S. media, was that people should expect widespread violence and fraud.