BAWIFT PR

01.06: Bay Area BusinessWoman News
Off The Reel: Bay Area Women Filmmakers Join Forces
—By Mara Math

Bay Area Women in Film and Television jumpstarts its seventh year with a hot meeting featuring the three Bay Area film commissioners, all of whom happen to women. The panel will discuss the current and future state of film and television production in the Bay Area, how to bring more production back to the Bay Area, and how the commissioners can serve as a resource for local filmmakers.

The nonprofit Bay Area Women In Film and Television (BAWIFT) offers women media makers throughout Northern California opportunities for creative collaboration, networking, and professional development. Above all, it offers community, as evidenced in the 600-and-growing membership of its on-line forum, affectionately known as Chicks Chat; about 160 are formal dues-paying members who can run and vote for the Board of Directors.

The membership includes women from all aspects of the industry — from audio engineers to animators, from directors to post-production pros. “Our members are mostly concerned with getting work,” BAWIFT Board member Liz Nord says, “but something that makes our chapter different from some of the others is that we are all very supportive of each other and help each other out.”

A former graphic designer, Nord, 28, came to San Francisco five years ago from Boston, and has found it “a fantastic place, mostly because of BAWIFT, to develop this new career.” Her first feature documentary, Jericho's Echo: Punk Rock in the Holy Land, has been touring film festivals this year — including the San Francisco International Jewish Film Festival — to great acclaim.

Founder Liza Maine Seybold concurs. “The BAWIFT community is a place where there are no stupid questions.” She emphasizes that all members, old-timers or tyros, have equal standing. She’s proud of BAWIFT’s new program The Exchange, in which established women filmmakers mentor less experienced ones.

“After Northern California Women in Film and TV kind of fell apart, there was nothing for awhile, and I really missed being able to talk with other women filmmakers,” recalls another board member, award-winning director/DP Karil Daniels (Voices of Dissent: Activism & American Democracy, Water Baby). She remembers being invited to a professional event where Kodak introduced a new film stock, and finding herself one of only three women in a room of 100 cinematographers. “It’s better now,” she says “We’re about 25 percent. And growing!”

BAWIFT was born in 2000 as a group of a dozen women calling themselves Cinema Chicks, and in 2003 became a non-profit and affiliated as part of International Women in Film and Television. “We’re becoming a lot more visible, “Nord observes, “as shown by the fact that these three busy [film] commissioners are willing to give their time for this presentation.” (And, she points out, BAWIFT’s monthly panels are the most reasonable educational option around, free to members and only $5 for nonmembers.)
“We’re making big moves,” Nord reports happily, some of which are still under wraps, but which include, for instance, looking into corporate partnerships and partnering with film festivals. The group is also scheduling quarterly open houses at various members’ post-production studios, where other members will be able to come and ask questions/learn. In February, she says, in place of a regular board meeting, BAWIFT will hold a “visioning” meeting to brainstorm about the organization’s future directions.

BAWIFT currently offers members the on-line forum; monthly professional panels featuring notables such as producer Debbie Brubaker (Dopamine, Swing) and screenwriter Janet Peoples (12 Monkeys, Nico); quarterly screening meetings where members can show their works-in-progress; and listing in the Women in Film & TV International database and BAWIFT’s on-line directories.

This year BAWIFT has added some new benefits for members: a low-cost half-hour attorney consultation, with a special BAWIFT hourly rate thereafter; Letters of Support for filmmakers seeking funding or needing to prove credibility to gain access to interview subjects; and free links from the BAWIFT Shop directly to wherever a member’s DVD/VHS is sold—BAWIFT takes no percentage from the sale, and the web site now offers film reviews by local filmmaker Sarah Dunham.

The panel featuring Stefanie Pleet Coyote, Brenna Bailey, Ami Zins, Film Commission Directors for San Francisco, San Mateo County, and Oakland, respectively, will be held January 18, 7-9:30 pm, at A Traveling Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida Street, San Francisco. Filmmaker Lorrae Rominger, former Executive Director of the San Francisco Film and Video Arts Commission, will moderate.BAWIFT meetings are open to women only.

Meetings are free for members; non-members pay $5 at the door. For more information, visit online, or call (415) 364-1860. http://www.bawift.org.