Jeesh, I go on vacation for a month and the whole world blows up. Or at least that part holding Minneapolis/St. Paul, where I learned that Jane Minton was unceremoniously dismissed as the head of IFP Minnesota.
Wow. For those of you who don’t know, Jane was the head of IFP Minnesota for decades. As many people have commented online, she was THE face of film in Minnesota for years. She was also a friend, mentor and someone I trusted. I met many of my friends in the business as a result of Jane – she introduced me to current and former staff, to filmmakers, producers, funders and even my current lawyer. When I first visited MSP for the NAMAC conference, she took me, and a group of others, under her wing and not only showed us a good time in Minneapolis, but also made sure we met all the right people. She remained a confidant over the years, and I had just seen her in Minneapolis a couple months ago when I was a panelist for the McKnight Foundation grants. So, I am a biased party when I say that I am flabbergasted that the board would not only choose to dismiss her, but would do it in such a bumbling, idiotic way. You can read all about it here and here and Jane’s note to the public is here. I’m sure some board member will defend their decision, they always do, but regardless of the circumstances (which I don’t know), it is clear that the board has incompetently handled the transition, and thus none of them deserve to remain in charge of the organization for that reason alone.
But what really floored me, and the reason I’m writing this post, was that none of the usual press suspects wrote about this at all. Not IndieWire, not Filmmaker Magazine, and none of the old or new trades in the business. I’m not surprised that Variety wouldn’t cover it – in addition to being a relatively worthless publication these days, they are theoretically focused more on Hollywood. But there was a time when this would have merited not just a mention, but a long article (or two) from Indiewire. It shows how far they’ve fallen, and how little they care about true indies that they didn’t even see fit to mention it in any of their invaluable blogs.
Over the years, Minnesota has been a pretty active community in the indie film world. IFP Minnesota and Jane Minton have been central to that importance. Sure, it’s regional. Sure, not every person who follows IndieWire knows who Jane or IFP MSP even are. But they should, and it’s IndieWire’s job to cover the news, not just the press releases, that matter to the state of indie film. They dropped the ball. So did Filmmaker Magazine. This is even more troubling because it is a publication of IFP Minneosta’s sister in NYC, the IFP. I’m sure there’s politics in them hills, but that shouldn’t stop at least some reporting on the affair. Come on man, I’m sure the news hit the damn place sometime. Mind you, I’m not asking for unbiased defense of Jane here, as my post surely is, but just some reporting. You know, like respectable journalism.
Oh wait. We don’t have that in the indie film sector anymore. It went away with AIVF and “The Independent.” It went away when the founders of IndieWire all left the publication. It went away when we started running stories like this instead of real news. I miss it. I’ll miss Jane at IFP Minnesota. But I’ll always remember our inside joke – Jane, here’s to “Minnesota and Shit.” Keep up the good work wherever you may land.