MIX NYC

MIX NYC is a not-for-profit organization based in New York City and dedicated to queer experimental film. It is also known as the "MIX festival," for its most visible program, the annual New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film Festival.

History
MIX was founded in 1987 by Sarah Schulman and Jim Hubbard. The festival was created because newly emerging Gay Film Festivals were not including formally inventive work, and the then vibrant experimental film venues marginalized gay and lesbian work. They were aided by curators Jack Waters and Peter Cramer from NAKED EYE CINEMA and Ela Troyano who programmed The New York Film Festival Downtown. The first festival featured the world premiere of Su Freidrich's DAMNED IF YOU DON'T, and from then on the festival became a showcase for new works by established makers, archival masters like Barbara Rubin's CHRISTMAS ON EARTH, and new emerging artists. Quickly, in concert with the emerging AIDS Activist and Queer Activist movement of the day- The NYLGEFF became a mass cultural event in the LGBT underground. Friday nights were guaranteed sold-out "Lesbian Date Nights" and a counter-culture of new interest in film and video emerged around the festival community. MIX soon became very influential on other programming venues, often contributing significant work to The Whitney Biennial, The Berlin Film Festival and other important screens. MIX exhibited first films by major lesbian, gay and bisexual filmmakers including Todd Haynes' college thesis film, ASSASSINS (which got him his first review, ever), Maria Maggenti's NAME DAY, the first screening of PARIS IS BURNING, when it was still on a dual system, Christine Vachon's first film, and many others. Hubbard and Schulman prioritized artists' fees, paying all makers equally regardless of the length of their work, since in experimental film, labor intensivity was not determined by length. They included the first focus on films by and about black gay men in any film Festival. Schulman and Hubbard worked long and hard to get press review coverage for gay experimental work, often holding individual press screenings at the critic's convenience. They hand wheatpasted posters on buildings around the city, and leafleted areas where gay people hung out, like the piers and bars. Mix received no funding and managed to break even on enthusiastic box office support. They showed gay expermental film from other countries and brought films by hand to venues around the US, Europe and Japan. The festival has shown the work of filmmakers such as Barbara Hammer, Nisha Ganatra, Teri Rice, Jonathan Caouette, and Isaac Julien among hundreds more. As makers began to die of AIDS, Jim became active in film preservation, beginning with the film AVOCADA by the late Bill Vehr of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company. Eventually, he preserved over 2,000 hours of AIDS Film and Video, now available for free viewing at The New York Public Library. During Sarah and Jim's tenure, no one was ever turned away from MIX due to inability to pay. The festival also included Transsexual work from the very first year, with Marguerite Paris's film ALL WOMEN ARE EQUAL. They found ways of getting works by makers like Chantal Ackerman who did not show in gay festivals. Among many fabulous moments in the festival's history was MIX's screening of Andy Warhol's BLOW JOB which was attended by Kitty Carlisle Hart in a gown with a tuxedo'd escort.

Hubbard & Schulman ran the festival together as a community event from 1987-1991. After the 1991 festival, Schulman wanted to devote more time to her writing. The 1992 festival was organized by Hubbard and filmmakers Margueite Paris and Jerry Tartaglia. That year also introduced shows programmed by guest curators, who brought new perspectives to the line-up. Notable shows included Our Fanzine Friends, which drew upon the hot trend of queer zines, featuring work by Glenn Belverio and Bruce LaBruce; and FIRE, featuring work from the African diaspora. This last program featued work by Dawn Suggs, Shari Frilot, Thomas Allen Harris and others.

In 1993 Frilot and Karim Ainouz were the co-directors, and introduced many changes, including the name MIX, the production of a catalog (instead of handing our program notes), a new venue (The Kitchen instead of Anthology Film Archives) and a commitment to multicultural presentations and installation work. A stunning program that year was called The 1000 Dreams of Desire, curated by Jim Lyons. It was a special show featuring Teri Rice's "The Kindling Point" and "Les Affaire", at the Ann Street Bookstore in Lower Manhattan, where the peep booths were reprogrammed with experimental video, and 16mm film was projected in a separate room. MIX returned to Anthology in 1994, and combined with DCTV's Lookout Lesbian & Gay Video Festival because DCTV's building was under renovation. Ainouz scaled back his involvement, and Frilot became the definitive voice of MIX, making the organization a home for emerging filmmakers and makers of color. This was signalled by 1994's opening feature, Brincando El Charco, and even more powerfully when 1995's opening and closing events were films by makers of color These films, Vintage: Families of Value by Thomas Allen Harris, and Frilot's own documentary Black Nations/Queer Nations, brought new audiences to MIX. They started satellite festivals such as MIX Brasil and MIX Mexico.

1996 was the festival's 10th anniversary, and in honor of this milestone MIX presented queer work from the African diaspora at the Victoria Theater in Harlem, in addition to its downtown programs at NYU's Cantor Film Center and the Knitting Factory. The festival closed with the New York Premiere of Chocolate Babies, by Stephen Winter.

Frilot headed MIX through 1996. Her other legacy was a commitment to installation work and the nascent digital realm. Installations were on view in 1993, on the upper floor of the Kitchen. But in 1994, Shu Lea Cheang and Beth Stryker curated Cyberqueer, in the basement galleries of Anthology. Although installations were presented in subsequent years, they never matched these early efforts. Frilot went on to become a curator at he Sundance Film Festival.

Rajendra Roy was in charge in 1997, when the festival moved to Cinema Village, which was then a single-screen theater on E. 12th Street. Roy brought on Anie Stanley as artistic director in 1998, and as a team they propelled MIX to greater visibility, with more corporate sponsorship, but with less emphasis on the identity politics of the early 1990s. 1998 also saw a sidebar of 8 mm films curated by Stephen Kent Jusick, featuring work by both contemporary makers and old masters, such as Jack Smith, and Andy Warhol's Polavision home movies. Roy is now the new film curator at The Museum of Modern Art.

Roy & Stanley stepped down after the 2000 festival, making way for Ioannis Mookas, who took the title of Executive Director. The organization, whose offices had been in the financial district, suffered after 9/11, and Mookas left after overseeing two festivals.

MIX as an organization took a new direction in 2003, when it initiated the ACT UP Oral History Project, run by Hubbard and Schulman (www.actuporalhistory.org), and funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation. This new effort gave the organization another aspect, different from being just a film festival.

Larry Shea and Stephen Winter took the helm of the festival in 2003. Jonathan Caouette's Tarnation was shepherded into being under Winter's supervision, and its premiere as the festival centerpiece was the beginning of its illustrious path to Cannes, the New York Film Festival and a distribution deal with Wellspring in 2004.

A large-scale installation called CAKE, about garment workers, by Mary Ellen Strom & Ann Carlson, debuted at South Street Seaport as the festival centerpiece. MIX expanded beyond the concept of the annual festival more in late 2004, with the introduction of MIXtv, which aired weekly on Manhattan Neighborhood Network.

Yet MIX was unable to capitalize on the success of Tarnation, and financial troubles led Shea to move the festival from November to April 2005, skipping 2004 entirely. MIX began a community screening program, which took work to various neighborhoods and communities, beginning with the Bronx in February 2005.

Larry Shea left MIX after the 2005 festival to devote more time to his video art, and a new team was appointed in the fall, including Andre Hereford, Szu Burgess, Kate Huh and Stephen Kent Jusick. Moving MIX back to its traditional November timeslot was the first decision of the new staff.

In May, 2006, MIX began the Naked Eye Celebrity Camera benefit, auctioning off disposable cameras exposed by artists and celebrities including Laurie Anderson, Gus Van Sant, B.D. Wong, Alec Soth and over 100 others.