James Meeks of the UK Guardian attends the world's first right-wing film festival, in Dallas:
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1311287,00.htmlA couple of choice excerpts:
"Our film festival is not really to chastise liberals, it's to chastise conservatives," said Jim Hubbard in the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel, Dallas, next day. Hubbard set up American Renaissance with his wife Ellen. "Quit whining about Hollywood, quit threatening these meaningless boycotts, get into the market of ideas and fight for what you believe. There was just such a shortage of films and documentaries that represented a conservative world view. For some reason, conservatives don't go into film. They don't tend to be artists. I don't know why. That's just a tendency."
Hubbard has been described by the media as a wealthy Dallas attorney, although he isn't. He's from Arkansas, not long out of law school, and has done various jobs, including restaurateur and schoolteacher. He told me he and his wife slept on a $200 futon from Wal-Mart. Ellen Hubbard did not seem happy he told me this.
<snip>
To the outsider, it might appear that 2004 was honours even for the anti-war left and the pro-war Christian right in film terms in America: the former had the astonishing commercial success of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 to enjoy, the latter the huge phenomenon of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. They didn't see it that way at American Film Renaissance. They were angry about Fahrenheit 9/11, certainly - surprisingly so, given that so few of them had seen it. But they were still angry that the big studios had scorned The Passion. Even their triumph at Gibson going off and showing the big players how a Christian film could make money was tinged with rage.
... many more bemused observations of a Brit in Freeperland. :P
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