Milwaukee Film has been busy this past year, which includes hiring a new CEO, re-opening the historic Downer Theater and launching a new event centering documentary film. The organization has also eliminated its beloved outreach programming.
The cuts to educational programs and artist services, including the Teen Filmmakers Lab, were done to ensure Milwaukee Film can achieve financial sustainability. To do so, Milwaukee Film CEO Anne Reed says they are focusing on what they do best: “showing film.”
But the cuts to programming that are aimed at younger, more diverse audiences, as well as the recent loss of their Black Lens programmer, Marquise Mays, have past employees questioning their commitment to Milwaukee’s more diverse population.
Big changes in 2024
If you attended the Milwaukee Film Fest this past year, you might have experienced, or re-experienced, one of those changes in the re-opening of the 107-year-old Downer Theater, Wisconsin’s oldest theater.
“It closed last September, just about a year ago,” says Reed. “The idea of that place going dark with its historic significance as a theater, with the significance of the neighborhood that it anchors … [it was] something that we could [not] envision.”
The Downer Theater is currently open and showing films daily.
There was also a new event introduced by Milwaukee Film, which begins later this month: Dialogues Documentary Fest. The four-day event, Sept. 26-29, will play 35 films across both the Oriental and Downer theaters. The event centers audience talkbacks after showings between different panelists.
“We’re pulling people together, both the filmmakers and also people in town who are working around the issue that that documentary features, in order to have a conversation afterwards,” Reed says.
While the film schedule has been released for the event, it’s yet to be announced who the panelists will be for the different films.
A year of deep cuts
A year ago, the organization cut some positions that have been synonymous with Milwaukee Film for close to a decade. That includes Geraud Blanks, chief innovation officer and a key member of designing and launching Milwaukee Film’s Cultures & Communities Festival, an eight-day festival, which included screenings and events that focused on Milwaukee’s diverse population and younger arts audience. Cultures & Communities was also cut this past year.
Reed says that while the decision to eliminate the program was tough, it was necessary. And that Milwaukee Film’s mission going forward is to focus solely on film and running their two theaters.
“It was difficult,” says Reed, about the decision to cut outreach programming. “But in the end, it was really clarifying and motivating to say we're going to give this community this as hard as we can and do it.”
Recent reporting from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel looked into how these cuts seem to contradict the stated mission of Milwaukee Film “to convene diverse communities.”
“I think Cultures & Communities really saved Milwaukee Film,” says Tyanna Clayton-Mallett, a former Black Lens programmer. “We were really providing a lot of great programming virtually [during the pandemic].”
Clayton-Mallett says she felt the elimination of her position and others in her department were done without care and wasn’t “people-centered.” She also says that the cuts were sadly expected.
“Milwaukee Film [got] on the diversity train with all of what was happening with the racial unrest due to the [murder] of George Floyd, just make these statements and then say that, you know, because of the financial crisis and whatnot — all the diversity stuff is the first to go,” Clayton-Mallett says. “That is kind of textbook of a lot of organizations ... 'Oh, we're done, you know, let's wipe our hands clean.'”
Reed says that people can think of the upcoming Dialogues Documentary Festival as a type of Cultures & Communities. She says that this kind of conversation around film is an extension of that work.
What to expect from Milwaukee Film
While Milwaukee Film says their focusing on film moving forward, a move that Reed says will get them to a surplus by the end of the year, it’s unclear what this means for Milwaukee Film supporters of color, especially considering the lack of racial representation in the organization.
While Reed says that Black Lens, Cine Sin Fronteras and GenreQueer will continue, there are currently no local programmers of color on staff. The history of Milwaukee Film includes claims of systemic racism and trouble retaining staff of color, including the co-founders of Cine Sin Fronteras, Milwaukee Film’s Latine program.
“You had so much experience and so many relationships, I don't think Milwaukee Film understands how important relationships are …within the Black community,” says Clayton-Mallett. “Within Milwaukee relationship building is extremely important and we were just there, just getting there, and then it's wiped from under us.”
Clayton-Mallet, like Jeanette Martín and Claudia Guzmán, co-founders of Cine Sin Fronteras, are now asking what accountability looks like. She says that Milwaukee Film is in the position it’s in today, one to re-open the historic Downer Theater, because of the work of Black and brown staff.
“Every time I talked about Milwaukee Film, I would always say Milwaukee has one of the top film festivals in the country,” Clayton-Mallett says. “I'm just really sad that like Milwaukee Film just is like any, like many other organizations that seem like they're putting this diversity work to the side.”
