October
24
Tamara Jenkins Talks Up Sundance's Michelle Satter
Michelle Satter is the founding director of the feature film program of the Sundance Institute, as writer-director Tamara Jenkins (The Savages) points out in this delightful intro speech she gave earlier this month at a Women in Film event where she presented Satter with the WIF Leadership Award. Fair to say, the folks sitting in the sunny back yard of the Intercontinental Hotel were laughing their heads off. Jenkins is a funny and insightful writer, one reason why The Savages, her upcoming dark comedy starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney as warring siblings, is so good.
I thought it was auspicious that on my way to this WOMEN IN FILM event, the female flight attendant on my United Flight was reading THE SECOND SEX by SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR. When she handed me my tiny Mylar bag of pretzels, I commented on her book and she rolled her eyes said, “I got to get out of this job.” As a former waitress, I could relate. This afternoon we’re here to honor someone without whom there is a very good chance that today—instead of being a woman in film—I’d still be a waitress in film.As it says in the program, Michelle Satter is the FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF THE FEATURE FILM PROGRAM OF THE SUNDANCE INSTITUTE. What does the Founding Director of a Feature Film Program do exactly? My job is to give you a little insight into Michelle’s world and to help you understand why it is that she very much deserves the award that she will be given today and perhaps a few more.
First of all, Michelle has to deal with people like me all the time. Writer-Director-Artist-types. Perhaps you know some of these kinds of people or you have one in your family. Or perhaps, worst of all, you are one yourself.
In which case you know that we are a difficult breed. Characteristics can include a peculiar mix of profound insecurity on the one hand and demented grandiosity on the other. This combination of personality traits can also be found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders under another title. But we should leave that for the American Psychiatric Association to discuss.
Michelle isn’t a trained psychiatrist, but she has developed many of their skills. Michelle shows up at a critical time in a fledgling filmmaker’s life—a stage in their careers when they are often described as “emerging” or more simply put—unemployed.
12 years ago, I was living in a 5th floor walk-up on Avenue B and I was going through a particularly bleak period. I had just suffered the indignities of a very unpleasant break-up. I was broke. I had no health insurance. I had a few short films under my belt and a half-written screenplay sitting in my computer that I was unable to finish. I was officially “emerging.” Then I got the call. It came in over the answering machine. A gentle voice wafting through my otherwise stagnant apartment:
“Hi Tamara, this is Michelle Satter from the Sundance Institute. I’m calling because I was wondering if you were working on a screenplay that you might want to submit for consideration to our feature film program. Give me a call. I’d love to know what you’re working on.”
The idea that someone out there was interested in what I was working on was astonishing—and terrifying and kind of thrilling because as all fledgling filmmakers know, getting the call from Michelle means that you might get invited to the Writers Lab or The Directors Lab or you might hit the Jackpot and get invited to BOTH! In which case you will leave all your troubles behind. You will be air lifted out of the urban squalor of your 5th floor walk-up. You will be flown to far off Utah where you will workshop your screenplay in a freakishly supportive environment—the likes of which you will never see again. Think of it as a sort of FRESH AIR FUND FOR FILMMAKERS. This a place where fellow film people actually want you to do well. This is a place where established filmmakers roam around the mountains helping less experienced filmmakers figure out the best way to execute their stories. This is a place where you are genuinely encouraged to take artistic risks and you are applauded even when you stumble. This is a place where for 4 weeks actors and directors and writers at all different points in their careers get to rehearse, shoot, edit and screen scenes from their works-in-progress. They talk about the work, critique it and then go back the next day and do it all over again. The Sundance Lab was the best film school I ever went to. I learned more there in 4 weeks than I did in 3 years of Graduate School.The person who oversees this insane, idyllic artistic enterprise is Michelle Satter. When Michelle called me, I was stuck and self-loathing and I was scared to call her back. But she was persistent. In her impossibly gentle way she managed to coax me out of my Post Graduate stupor. She made me feel that my stupid ideas weren’t stupid. She got me to finish the half-written screenplay that was sitting inside my computer. She was kind to me. She got me out of my apartment. She got me to Utah and paid attention to me and my work. It was transformative. After the lab, she even helped persuade a certain head of a certain studio to commit to making my first movie.
Michelle works in mysterious ways: She is a coach. A film lover. An arts educator. An architect. A nurturer of neurotics. A producer. An enabler. A reader. A critic. A fan. A guidance councilor. A rare and generous person in a business that isn’t famous for it’s generosity.
Even 12 years after the dreamy experience of going through the filmmaker’s lab, Michelle’s presence is still with me. She hovers over my desk reminding me that it’s important to stand up against the pressures to shave the edges of a story or cut a scene that might be considered too risky by an anxious financier. When the business aspects of the film business threaten the work itself, when I feel worn out and too tired and about to surrender—when I think maybe it’s not worth the fight, maybe no one cares, they’re just movies—I remember that Michelle Satter is out there, sitting in the dark watching movies and she cares.
Here is a quick list of women filmmakers that Michelle Satter has worked closely with when they themselves were “emerging”:
JULIE TAYMOR
ALLISON ANDERS
MIRANDA JULY
GINA PRINCE BYTHEWOOD
KIMBERLY PIERCE
NICOLE HOLOFCENER
ALISON MACLEAN
LISA CHOLODENKO
LAURIE COLLYER
HILARY BROUGHER
…among many others.
On behalf of this woman filmmaker and of all the other women filmmakers – and a few men – we thank you.
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