I'm in Minneapolis/St. Paul because I've been asked to be a judge on a grants panel. IFP Minnesota is giving out two $25,000 filmmaking grants to Minnesota residents. The grant money is provided by the McKnight Foundation, which was founded by William McKnight, who also founded 3M, which (I learned today) stands for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing.
IFP Minnesota apparently has the second largest membership in the country (right after New York). I'm a big fan of regional filmmaking, and I think it's a shame that so many talented filmmakers from around the country end up relocating to Los Angeles or New York. It homogenizes filmmaking, and deprives us of our cultural richness and diversity.
I'm really happy to support and reward local filmmakers. I love learning about other places, and it's great to learn about other places from the people who actually live there. It's been fun to see what Minnesota filmmakers have been up to, and to be able to help support good work.
When I got a Guggenheim, the first thing I did was to get rolfed. That was a good year. It's nice to know that two talented Minnesota filmmakers are about to have a much better year than they would have had otherwise. Thank God for scotch tape.
posted by Caveh Zahedi at
11:50 PM
