a respond to the NewFest Film Festival advertisement
Support "Paris is Burning" Filmmaker Jennie Livingston's New Film!
you guys must be joking, this is an insult to the Harlem House Ball Community!
Jeannie was successfully sued by Octavia St. Laurent and she was never invited back by the Ball community, for years no still camera's and video camera's were allowed at balls because of Paris is Burning, I can go on and on. When the opportunity was given for the ball community to attend screenings where Jeannie would attend, for some reason she never showed up at those screenings, because the ball community wanted to tell her face to face how they feel.
I don't see anything about that in your advertisement? it shows how much you guys don't do any of your home work and feeding right into the corporate propaganda machine to continue to disrespect this community and glamorize Jeannie's exploitative film. You guys don't know anything about our community. This disgraceful director who came to this community for a school project and turned around and sold it to the Weinstein brothers for a nice profit without informing or sharing money with the ball community.
It is very unfortunate how disconnected you people really are and if you really want to support the artistic community, I am more than happy to introduce you to the Icons and Legends of the Ball community that are still alive today who would love to tell you their site of the story and how they feel about Paris is Burning and Jeannie Livingston.
let their voices be heard not newfest
You decided to take on the responsibility to glamorize a film "Paris is Burning" without ever talking to one Icon or Legend in the Ball community who are rejecting this film, it takes more courage to pick up the phone and actually talk to a real ball person and hear the real story, than paying attention to people who write stuff about this community who never speak to the ball historians or never do any fact checking. Your incompetence and ignorance keeps the wounds open we the ball community are trying so hard to heel, but instead our own gay and lesbian brothers and sisters will do anything to ad to their resume by attaching them to the ball community, regardless how the ball community feels about this.
Who at Newfest checked about how the ball community feels about all of this, please name one person in the ball community that you know that is still alive and was in Paris is Burning and is in support of this film, please give me one name please.
Why do you think she has a hard time raising money??? I bet you never checked about that either, did you?
Maybe people in the industry know about her and her exploitation???
People like her need to go away and need to be replaced with people that care about a community,
you guys run the largest LGBT festival in the country and you guys don't know anything about this, how ironic is that!
please contact me if you have any real community bone in your body, and show some courage to actually help a community
rather than help a director that exploits communities, who is she exploiting NOW???
best
Wolfgang Busch
Honorary House member of the House of Khan and Omni
I am also the director of "How Do I Look", a positive documentary about the House Ball Community
and still active in this community after 17 years
