NEA Gay Lesbian Film Festivals 1993
Date: 1993
Region: North America
Subject: Sexual/Gender Orientation
Medium: Film Video
Artist: National Alliance for Media Arts Culture
Confronting Bodies: National Endowment for the Arts
Dates of Action: 8/25/93
Location: Washington, DC
Description of Artwork: Gay and Lesbian Film Festivals
The Incident: Grants for three homosexual film festivals were originally rejected by then-acting Chair Anne-Imelda Radice, who was appointed by President Bush after he fired her predecessor, John Frohnmayer. Arts organizations said that many of the films shown in the festivals were also shown at mainstream film festivals. They charged that rejection of the grants was based purely on politics, not artistic merit.
Results of Incident: On August 25, 1993 the decision was reversed. The decision headed off a threatened lawsuit by the Oakland, California-based, National Alliance for Media Arts Culture, an umbrella organization that had requested the original funding on behalf of the Gay and Lesbian Media Coalition in Los Angeles, the New Festival in New York, and the Pittsburgh International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.The NEA said it reversed its decision after acting Senior Deputy Chair Ana Stelle found an "abuse of process" in Radice's rejection of the grants. Radice made the decision after the deadline for notifying grant applicants had passed and the festivals had already occurred. The NEA said it would give the alliance the $17,500 the film festivals would have received in 1992.
Source: Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association
