Dr. Susan Kerns has been on Lake Effect in the past in relation to her work as a film producer with the documentaries Manlife and No One Asked You. Kerns also held faculty and leadership positions at Columbia College Chicago in relation to cinema and television arts. She’s also the co-founder of the Chicago Feminist Film Festival and speaks around the country on topics relating to the film festival landscape.
As of Feb. 3, Dr. Susan Kerns became the new executive director of Milwaukee Film. The appointment follows Anne Reed’s interim term last year, which was a year of major transition and tumult both financially and restructuring after several recent challenges.
Milwaukee Film made cuts to staff, educational programming, artist services and also eliminated the Cultures & Communities Festival – to name a few of the changes. You can learn more about them below:
Kerns joined Lake Effect’s Audrey Nowakowski to share what her goals and priorities are one week into this new position, and she begins by explaining her background in film.
Kerns’ background
Kerns’ lifelong passion for cinema began with early dreams of being an actor. As a child, she recalls auditioning for Country, a film shot on location in her home state of Iowa. As an acting major in college, however, she realized: “Truthfully, I just wasn’t very good,” she says.
Hoping to write about movies instead, she then turned to journalism. While studying at University of Texas-Austin, she says she “caught the festival bug” volunteering during the early days of South By Southwest. Moving on to study English and film studies, she got her master’s and eventually a doctorate from UW-Milwaukee.
“One of the great things about Milwaukee is that when you’re working in film here as a film scholar, people also want you to be involved in their film productions,” she says.
Having worked on films such as Little Red and numerous other short films, Kerns says her experience as a filmmaker has taught her how to make the most of limited resources—a skill that comes in handy in her new role.
“I think nonprofits need to be a little bit scrappy, and certainly independent filmmaking is all about being scrappy,” she says. “So, I do think that there are some instincts there that will help me in this role.”
I think nonprofits need to be a little bit scrappy, and certainly independent filmmaking is all about being scrappy.
Why Milwaukee Film?
Kerns heard about the position from a friend while working at Columbia College in Chicago, and she says she trusted her gut in going through with the rigorous application process.
“I thought about it, and it just felt right,” she says. “I wouldn't say I'm a super instinctual person, so when I get a strong instinct like that, I feel like I need to follow it.”
Kerns has collaborated with Milwaukee Film numerous times over the years and served as the organization’s education director from 2011 to 2013, so her new position comes with a full-circle sort of of feeling—a feeling of homecoming.
Recalling a masterclass with Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland she helped facilitate before the pandemic, Kerns says Milwaukee Film’s nationwide and global connections are what make it so special.
“People all over the country know who Milwaukee film is, in large part because of the outreach efforts that [Cara Ogburn] has been doing king of behind the scenes for the better part of decade—or over a decade, really,” she says.
Kerns also says the organization couldn’t be what it is today without its members and the local Milwaukee Film community.
“The fact that it’s such a community that has been coming together and talking about film and helping the organization succeed,” she says. “For as much as the staff feels like a family, the members feel like a family too.”
Looking forward
As a Milwaukee resident and a member of the local film community, Kerns was well aware of the changes Milwaukee Film was going through. Yet, she says that "it did and it didn't" give her pause in applying for the position to lead the organization.
"Certainly I wanted to be very informed about all of those changes. I asked a lot of questions about, you know, what is the economic situation of the organization? I know a lot of the people who had worked for the organization, I'm still friends with many of them, so I know a lot of that [history] very intimately. At the same time, there's something very exciting about a fresh start and that's something that I hope that I can bring with me," Kerns explains.
"We know that there are skeletons in the closet, we know that we don't have all the money in the world right now. I'm hoping that we get to a point where we do, but reimagining sort of how we can use cinema to engage the community and how we can affect change through cinema [is one of my goals,]" she adds.
Kerns notes one of her first action items is to make a strategic plan with people at Milwaukee Film currently. “I think there's a lot more that we can do. Really connecting with local community organizations, bringing in people, doing some programming that pushes boundaries a little bit differently,” she explains.
For Kerns, that means being strategic about audience outreach, repairing relationships with community partners, investing in film education programming, spotlighting diverse voices from around the world and connecting cinema with community action.
This spring, she’s looking forward to the Milwaukee Film Festival from April 24 to May 8. Historically, she says the festival has been very successful at bringing diverse filmmakers and stories to the foreground but she says there’s more work to be done in making diversity something more than an afterthought.
“I want to make sure that [our programming] is really well-rounded throughout the year so that it really doesn't ever feel like an add-on,” she says. "And I know that I have some repair work to do. I plan to be very out and about in the community, I plan to be very present making sure that I can build these personal connections with companies, with corporations, with groups to make sure that they start to know me. Because I do feel like the the personal is political and that if I can have good relationships with folks I think we'll start to earn back some of that trust."
Kerns notes that the Downer Theatre is also a crucial part of Milwaukee Film’s strategy of reaching new audiences.
“We currently have a five-year agreement with the Downer, so we want to really gauge what audiences are coming to the Downer," she explains. "What audiences are responding to in that neighborhood and, truthfully, if it's something that we can pursue longer-term.”
