South­ern film fes­ti­vals in the age of the Alaba­ma-Geor­gia abor­tion bans

It’s unusu­al for two state leg­isla­tive ses­sions in the Unit­ed States to have an effect on the nation­al and inter­na­tion­al film indus­try, but a pair of bills passed in two South­ern states in May look set to have a pro­found and last­ing impact on cin­e­ma in Amer­i­ca and beyond.

In Geor­gia, Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp signed a bill that will make abor­tion ille­gal across the state after six weeks of preg­nan­cy. The back­lash to the bill – which many legal schol­ars and politi­cians view as a direct chal­lenge to the Roe ver­sus Wade rul­ing in the Supreme Court which legal­ized abor­tion across the US – was swift, and film­mak­ers such as Reed Mora­no and Kris­ten Wiig pro­posed boy­cotts that tar­get­ed Georgia’s mas­sive­ly lucra­tive film indus­try, which gov­ern­ment agen­cies esti­mate accounts for $9.5 bil­lion in ​“eco­nom­ic impact” with­in the state.

Because of the incred­i­bly gen­er­ous tax cuts pro­vid­ed by local gov­ern­ment for pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies, Geor­gia has become a hub for the inter­na­tion­al film pro­duc­tion, becom­ing the de fac­to film­ing des­ti­na­tion for Mar­vel, Dis­ney and Net­flix. Cut­ting off one of Georgia’s most pros­per­ous sources of eco­nom­ic income could prove to be effec­tive, but Georgia’s film work­ers argue that the local indus­try – from pro­duc­tion assis­tants to ani­ma­tors to on-set cater­ers – would feel the finan­cial reper­cus­sions of a boy­cott long before the state itself would. Georgia’s neigh­bor­ing state, Alaba­ma, stands to be hurt by a boy­cott as well.

A few weeks after the Geor­gia ban, Alaba­ma Gov­er­nor Kay Ivey signed an even more restric­tive abor­tion ban into law, one that effec­tive­ly out­lawed all abor­tions in the state with no excep­tions for rape, incest, or the health of the preg­nant woman. There have been no direct calls for a boy­cott of Alaba­ma, but the Geor­gia boy­cott will almost cer­tain­ly hurt Alaba­ma film work­ers giv­en the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of the South­ern film industry.

The past few years have seen Acad­e­my Award-nom­i­nat­ed pro­duc­tions such as Jor­dan Peele’s Get Out and RaMell Ross’ Hale Coun­ty This Morn­ing, This Evening, but a stall of Georgia’s film indus­try – along with Alabama’s even more restric­tive abor­tion bans – stands to destroy all of the recent progress the state’s cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty has made.

A test for the boy­cott and the stur­di­ness of the South’s film indus­try comes in late August, with Alabama’s annu­al Side­walk Film Fes­ti­val. The long-run­ning event, which takes place in Birm­ing­ham, show­cas­es new indie films, restored clas­sics and local­ly made short films in the city’s vaude­ville-era the­aters and local music venues. This year’s 21^st edi­tion would already have been crit­i­cal under nor­mal cir­cum­stances: the festival’s orga­niz­ers will be open­ing up a per­ma­nent res­i­dence down­town, mak­ing it one of the few the­aters in Alaba­ma ded­i­cat­ed to show­ing inde­pen­dent films.

When I sat down with Sidewalk’s lead pro­gram­mer, Rachel Mor­gan, and exec­u­tive direc­tor, Chloe Cook, the open­ing night of the fes­ti­val was still a month away. The screen­ing sched­ule – which includes Jen­nifer Kent’s The Nightin­gale, Lynn Shelton’s Birm­ing­ham-set dram­e­dy Sword of Trust and the extend­ed director’s cut of Ari Aster’s Mid­som­mar – were being final­ized, and the orga­ni­za­tion was close to secur­ing the fund­ing need­ed to fin­ish the long-ges­tat­ing the­ater with­in the com­ing months.

The fall­out from Alaba­ma and Geor­gia abor­tion bans have brought a fresh set of chal­lenges to an already com­pli­cat­ed event: can a fes­ti­val in the epi­cen­ter of one of America’s most com­pli­cat­ed social, legal and med­ical issues still attract film­mak­ers and financiers? ​“We cer­tain­ly had to have con­ser­va­tions that I’ve nev­er had before with dis­trib­u­tors and film­mak­ers,” says Mor­gan. She notes that ulti­mate­ly no dis­trib­u­tors pulled their films from the final Side­walk line-up, attribut­ing this to the rela­tion­ships she has cul­ti­vat­ed with indie dis­trib­u­tors such as A24, Mag­no­lia Pic­tures and IFC Films.

But Mor­gan can’t over­look the pos­si­bil­i­ty that there are small­er film­mak­ers who may not have sub­mit­ted their work for con­sid­er­a­tion because of Alabama’s polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion, explain­ing that the orga­niz­ers have no way of know­ing ​“how many peo­ple may have not sub­mit­ted to the fes­ti­val. Our sub­mis­sions were not down, but you nev­er know. Did some­body not sub­mit because of [the abor­tion ban]? Did a film­mak­er not answer me because of it? I don’t know the answer to that.”

How­ev­er, Cook and Mor­gan can say with cer­tain­ty that the festival’s source of fund­ing was affect­ed by the bills and cor­re­spond­ing boy­cott. Side­walk is a rel­a­tive­ly small non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion which active­ly rais­es mon­ey to fund its var­i­ous ini­tia­tives, includ­ing the film fes­ti­val. Much of the fund­ing is raised from local and region­al cul­tur­al and film orga­ni­za­tions that see con­tribut­ing to Side­walk as an invest­ment in the South’s film indus­try. The calls for boy­cott put some of those funds into jeop­ardy, but not in the ways one would expect.

Cook, who is respon­si­ble for Sidewalk’s fund­ing and plan­ning, says that some spon­sors who ser­vice the Alaba­ma and Geor­gia film indus­try had to back out of their fund­ing agree­ments because of the loom­ing boy­cott and antic­i­pat­ed loss­es as a result of it. As far as the fund­ing for the cin­e­ma goes, Cook says that because most of the cap­i­tal for the project has been raised local­ly and con­struc­tion is near­ly com­plet­ed, the team is not con­cerned about financ­ing the last por­tion of the near­ly $5 mil­lion project.

While many ini­tial fundrais­ing and pro­gram­ming issues have calmed down now that the bills are no longer top­ics of con­ver­sa­tion, Cook pre­dicts that the call to boy­cott ​“will rear its ugly head again” once the laws are enact­ed, pre­sent­ing a new set of chal­lenges. In con­ver­sa­tions Mor­gan has had with film­mak­ers and dis­trib­u­tors over the past year about show­ing their films at Side­walk, she explains that she has spo­ken a lot about what it’s like on the ground in Alaba­ma, rec­og­niz­ing that many folks in the film indus­try have nev­er vis­it­ed the state. Won­der­ing if the abor­tion bills reflect the views of their prospec­tive audi­ence in Alaba­ma, they ques­tion whether films that chal­lenge the con­ser­v­a­tive pol­i­tics of the state will res­onate with the public.

Mor­gan has told the film­mak­ers and dis­trib­u­tors what it’s like liv­ing in Alaba­ma – espe­cial­ly in the pro­gres­sive and over­whelm­ing­ly pro-choice city of Birm­ing­ham – and lis­tens to their con­cerns about the provoca­tive con­tent in their films. Her answer to them is one that posits film as a con­duit for com­mu­ni­ty change: the chal­leng­ing con­tent in these films is essen­tial, she says, and Alaba­ma audi­ences, ​“need diverse con­tent, we need chal­leng­ing con­tent. It’s real­ly impor­tant and maybe more impor­tant in the state than any­where else.”

The long-term effects of the abor­tion ban and pro­posed boy­cott are unclear at the present moment. The Alaba­ma and Geor­gia bills will go into effect in 2020, but legal watch­dog groups and indi­vid­u­als have already filed legal action against the states in order to deem the bills uncon­sti­tu­tion­al before they are sched­uled to be enforced. Until then, the entire South­ern film com­mu­ni­ty is in lim­bo, hop­ing that those out­side of the indus­try rec­og­nize the poten­tial for activism and pos­si­bil­i­ty through film­mak­ing. A boy­cott can be a pow­er­ful tool in a cap­i­tal­ist pow­er strug­gle between an insti­tu­tion and the pub­lic, but the deeply per­son­al, reli­gious and cul­tur­al under­pin­nings of the abor­tion ban make it seem unlike­ly that eco­nom­ic loss would be enough to affect change.

What is need­ed now more than ever is sup­port for South­ern com­mu­ni­ties, film­mak­ers, and work­ers, all of whom are crit­i­cal in the South’s pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion, but with a boy­cott, there’s a chance that these cre­ators will not have the same chance to share their sto­ries, espe­cial­ly if local orga­ni­za­tions like Side­walk and oth­er South­ern film fes­ti­vals do not have the net­work of sup­port they need to function.

Would a boy­cott and its poten­tial wide­spread impact stop South­ern work­ers, women and the queer com­mu­ni­ty from giv­ing a voice to their strug­gles at a time when their voic­es are need­ed the most? Only time will tell. But through it all, Side­walk will con­tin­ue to show its films and sup­port­ing South­ern film­mak­ers as it always has.

For more info on this year’s Side­walk Film Fes­ti­val vis­it side​walk​fest​.com