I thought I would report that the Ann Arbor Film Festival just won its federal lawsuit against the State of Michigan regarding arts funding. A couple years ago, a small group of conservatives attacked the festival, accusing it of showing pornography. They deployed a frequently used tactic: stopping public funding. Soon they had enough political allies to get the state to make programming changes (no sex; no flag desecration) a prerequisite to further funding. The board of the festival refused, and fought back. They refused to take ANY state funds until the issue was resolved. They programmed an entire subsection on explicit films and videos, and held a special retrospective of the films the politicians singled out as pornographic. And they sued with the help of the ACLU. Today the State decide to settle the suit by repealing the unconstitutional restrictions on arts funding, bringing state law into line with the previous lawsuits filed in support of the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information, check out: http://www.aafilmfest.org/about/censorship/ This is really great news. Ann Arbor Film Festival is one of the grand- daddies of the festival scene (next March's festival is #46), and precious both to the independent film community and our local community. But their brave stance has cost a lot, as they took a mighty financial hit last year. Thought you should know..... Markus A. M. Nornes Professor Department of Screen Arts & Cultures Department of Asian Languages & Cultures University of Michigan Department of Asian Languages and Cultures Suite 6111, 202 South Thayer Street Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608 Phone: (734) 647-2094; FAX: x0157 Homepage: www.umich.edu/~amnornes ---- Learn to speak like a film/TV professor! Listen to the ScreenLex podcast: http://www.screenlex.org