July
16
Film Society of Lincoln Center Names Exec Director
Mara Manus, executive director of The Public Theater, will join the Film Society of Lincoln Center as executive director in mid-September. Manus left the movie business in the 80s after a stint as a production exec at Universal Pictures to pursue philanthropic efforts. The Film Society runs the Walter Reade repertory theater at Lincoln Center, the annual New York Film Festival, co-programs New Directors, New Films with the Museum of Modern Art, and publishes Film Comment Magazine (where I worked myself in the 80s, with then-editors Richard Corliss and Harlan Jacobson). The Film Society will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2009.
UPDATE: Here's NYT story.
The full press release is on the jump:
NEW YORK—July 16, 2008—The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today that Mara Manus has been appointed Executive Director, effective September 15. She joins the organization after six years as Executive Director of The Public Theater in New York, where her accomplishments led to a period of financial stability and artistic expansion for the organization. She began her career in the film industry, holding several production positions in Los Angeles.At the Public Theater, she was responsible for many of the initiatives that substantially grew the annual base of support from contributed income, individual support, corporate sponsorship and subscriber revenue; renegotiating and returning the organization to producing two Shakespeare productions in Central Park; and developing and managing a 50th anniversary celebration that included a gala benefit performance at City Center.
“We are thrilled to welcome Mara Manus to the Film Society,” said Daniel Stern, president of the Board. She will be a great leader for our organization and will take the Film Society to new heights. Her expertise in strategic planning and fundraising, as well as her knowledge of the city, will be a great asset to the organization, and will serve us well in reaching our goals and charting a new future that maximizes the expanded capability of a new film center in an extremely complex landscape.”
Prior to the Public Theater, Ms. Manus was Program Officer at the Ford Foundation, where she was responsible for awarding multi-million dollar grants, and served as President/Executive Director of Chrysalis, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the economically disadvantaged, where she greatly increased revenue and contributed income.
In addition to these distinguished non-profit ventures, she enjoyed a career as a film executive in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, where she was a production executive at MCA Universal for seven years, as well as Roger Corman’s New World Pictures and Trans-Pacific Films. She was Associate Producer of ABOVE THE RIM for New Line Cinema, an $8-million movie starring Tupac Shakur and filmed on location in New York City.
“This moment of rebirth of the Film Society is an opportunity to affirm the deep importance of film in modern culture and broaden its appeal in the cultural landscape of New York and beyond,” said Ms. Manus. “This is an incredible and deeply felt opportunity and I am thrilled to have this honor.”
She will be third Executive Director of the Film Society, succeeding Claudia Bonn, who served the organization for 15 years and took over as Executive Director in 2003. Prior to that, Joanne Koch held the reins for 37 years, from 1971 (9th New York Film Festival) and today serves on the Board and is active on the new Film Center Project.
The search was conducted by Phillips Oppenheim, an executive search firm focusing on cultural institutions.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center was founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, to recognize and support new directors, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility and understanding of film. Advancing this mandate today, the Film Society hosts two distinguished festivals. The New York Film Festival annually premieres films from around the world and has introduced the likes of François Truffaut, R.W. Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Pedro Almodóvar, Martin Scorsese, and Wong Kar-Wai to the United States. New Directors/New Films, co-presented by the Museum of Modern Art, focuses on emerging film talents. Since 1972, when the Film Society honored Charles Chaplin, the annual Gala Tribute celebrates an actor or filmmaker who has helped distinguish cinema as an art form. Additionally, the Film Society presents a year-round calendar of programming at its Walter Reade Theater and offers insightful film writing to a worldwide audience through Film Comment magazine.
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