Media Coverage

Audacious Act YouTubed!
10.25.2007 ~ Michael Jones, Variety.com ~ The Circuit
The first Act of Audacity has been triggered. Upon reaching their first goal of $10K, the Ann Arbor Film Festival took to the streets with glam, make-up, and a dented pick-up...
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Survival of the Coolest: Ann Arbor Film Festival evolves to endure
10.00.2007 ~ Wendy Case, moli.com - Arts and Entertainment
When organizers of the Ann Arbor Film Festival engineered the Endangered Species fundraising campaign, it wasn't an amber alert designed to gouge sentimental old hippies in the pocketbook. It was a bona fide, crisis-level stopgap measure to keep the 46-year-old institution alive...
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The Ann Arbor Film Festival: Putting the Money Where the Mouth Is
10.01.2007 ~ Tom Hall, Indiewire.com - The Back Row Manifesto
I was born in Michigan, raised in Michigan, went to college at the University of Michigan, spent untold hours watching films from the balcony of the Michigan Theater, was MARRIED a couple of months ago in the Michigan Theater; Let's just say I have some deep roots in that place.
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"Poached" Ann Arbor gets audacious
09.25.2007 ~ Michael Jones, Variety.com - The Circuit
The Ann Arbor Film Festival, one of the country's oldest fests, wasn't looking for a fight when it programmed Crispin Glover's "What is it?" for its 2005 edition.
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Executive Profile: Christen McArdle
04.04.2007 ~ Janet Miller, Ann Arbor Business Review
The end of March marked a wrap for Christen McArdle, executive director of
the Ann Arbor Film Festival. The year had seen the film festival thrust into the
spotlight over state funding and censorship...
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From the Daily: Expression repression - Film festival brings the right kind of attention to Ann Arbor
03.26.2007 ~ Michigan Daily Editors, Michigan Daily
For the past 45 years, the Ann Arbor Film Festival has cultivated creative expression by giving experimental artists a way to screen their work. Although in the past the festival screened films that may have offended some people, it serves a vital purpose in the cause of free artistic expression and in building up the socially creative, lively atmosphere for which Ann Arbor is known...
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Suit over film fest cites free speech: ACLU takes up cause after grant is denied for Ann Arbor event
03.21.2007 ~ Tracy Davis, Ann Arbor News
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the State of Michigan on behalf of the Ann Arbor Film Festival, citing violation of First Amendment rights...
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Ann Arbor Film Festival: Hot and Bothered
03.21.2007 ~ Kirk Vanderbeek, Real Detroit
The Ann Arbor Film Festival has been bringing experimental film to cinephiles longer than any other festival in North America, 45 years to be exact...
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Film fest, ACLU sue state: Legislator had said Ann Arbor Film Festival violated obscenity laws
03.21.2007 ~ Walter Nowinski, Michigan Daily
The opening of the Ann Arbor Film Festival took on an unusually political tone at the Michigan Theater last night when the directors of the festival committed to overturning some of the state's obscenity laws that have troubled organizers over the past year...
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Bowdlerize this: 'Uncensored' and 'fully electric,' the 45th Ann Arbor Film Fest stays its course, rejects state funding
03.21.2007 ~ Wendy Case, Metrotimes
Of all of the Ann Arbor Film Festival artifacts that adorn the walls of beloved Dominic's
restaurant in Ann Arbor, perhaps none represents the true essence of the festival better than the nude poster of performance artist Pat Olesko. Olesko, a longtime festival collaborator...
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Money tight, Ann Arbor film fest goes on
03.20.2007 ~ John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press
For New Orleans, the murder of filmmaker Helen Hill in January was a grim reminder of the senseless violence that plagues residents trying to rebuild the city. For the experimental filmmakers gathering this week at the Ann Arbor Film Festival...
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Michigan Cuts Arts Funding, and Trouble Begins
03.20.2007 ~ Celeste Headlee, NPR All Things Considered
In Michigan, state lawmakers have cut funding for the popular Ann Arbor
Film Festival, claiming it showed material they considered pornographic. But the ACLU says the lawmakers may have overstepped their bounds.
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Festival Takes a Stand: Censorship controversy still swirls around Ann Arbor Event
03.20.2007 ~ Michael H. Hodges, The Detroit News
Christen McArdle is deeply amused. Or trying to be. The woman, knee-deep in one of the biggest free-speech controversies currently on the boil...
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Festival Strikes Back: Scuffle over funding shapes '07 program
03.18.2007 ~ Jenn McKee, Ann Arbor News
The 45th annual Ann Arbor Film Festival - which screens independent and
experimental shorts, documentaries and features from around the world - kicks off
Tuesday at the Michigan Theater, despite facing extremely hard times this past
year...
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Experimental films take the Ann Arbor spotlight
03.16.2007 ~ Christopher Borrelli, The Blade (Toledo, OH)
It's 15 days before the 45th edition of the annual Ann Arbor Film Festival - the second-oldest film festival in the United States, which begins Tuesday...
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Deleted Scenes: Despite "pornography" accusations and funding cuts, the show will go on at the Ann Arbor Film Festival
03.14.2007 ~ Rick Claypool, Toledo City Paper
"I'll send you a picture, so you'll know what a pornographer looks like," giggled Brooke Keesling from faculty office at Detroit's College for Creative Studies. Keesling, a Professor of Animation at the college...
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The Art of Economic Revival
02.22.2007 ~ Jared Goldberg, Michigan Daily
Just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy has done it again. The think-tank known for its staunch conservatism and extreme free-market ideas recently concluded...
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Unreeling Controversy: Ann Arbor Film Festival stands firm on free-speech issue
12.00.2006 ~ Michelle Solomon, Hour Detroit
A local film festival with an international reputation is ath the center of a debate over free speech. The Ann Arbor Film Festival is entering its 45th year, but when the curtain opens in March...
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Lights, Camera, Censorship?
09.00.2006 ~ Jonathan Himlin, Art Showcase Magazine
Recently, the Ann Arbor Film Festival (AAFF), an annual week-long showcase for art films established in 1963, has come under fire by a special interest group in Midland called the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and like-minded legislators...
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Thanks for the grant - but not the restrictions
08.07.2006 ~ Bob Needham, Ann Arbor News
State funding for the arts - perennially in doubt, due to tight government finances - actually got an increase for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. It's not that much...
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Not all cash equal to film fest: State funds nixed; fund-raisers set
07.31.2006 ~ John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press
Ann Arbor Film Festival organizers hope a pair of benefit events this week will close a financial gap created by their decision earlier this year to turn down a state grant as a protest against censorship...
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Film fest facing financial crisis
06.23.2006 ~ Jenn McKee, Ann Arbor News
Controversy over state funding for the Ann Arbor Film Festival has led to a financial crunch for the event and a public fundraising campaign to stabilize it...
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If you support the arts and free speech, make yourself heard
05.16.2006 ~ Ken Bawcom, Ann Arbor News
In 1967, as a freshman at the University of Michigan, I first attended the Ann Arbor Film Festival. I have attended ever since. It is a rare and magical thing.
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Festival Under Fire: Organizer deny charge obscene films were shown
05.04.2006 ~ Jenn McKee and Amy Whitesall, Ann Arbor News
Stung by accusations that the Ann Arbor Film Festival has shown pornographic material and indignant about finding the festival the poster child in what they see as an effort to curtail arts funding in Michigan, organizers said this week they won't apply for state funding any time soon...
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Lawmaker targets Ann Arbor Film Festival funding
04.30.2006 ~ Marianne Rzepka, Ann Arbor News
The Ann Arbor Film Festival could lose its state funding under a legislative amendment that singles out the annual event, and one lawmaker is accusing the festival of showing pornography...
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