The Duplicity of the Bryn Mawr Film Institute

Siding with the angry mobs

When I went to Bryn Mawr, many years ago when Eclipses were used to identify witches and women in white danced around the Maypole in bizarre fertility rites (oh wait, they still do that…) there was a movie theater on Lancaster Avenue that I would visit almost every week.  It was a way to get away from the insularity of a woman’s college that was, in many ways, a secular convent where the buildings and the atmosphere reminded you of a Shakespeare play, the ones where the women got sent to a nunnery.  I don’t remember whether it was a Budco or an AMC or whatever chain existed in those halcyon early ‘80s, but it wasn’t particularly special.  Just first run movies, tasteless popcorn and sticky aisles.  I loved it.

Then, the place closed for a while, but since I was no longer an inmate at the Bryn Mawr Detention Center, I didn’t much care.  And then something wonderful happened:  Someone decided to buy the place, refurbish it with some very cool art deco signage and designs, and turned it into a cinema art house which screened both first run movies as well as foreign language and Indy films. They gave it a fancy name, the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, and I was in heaven, became a member, and went there often with my friend Jeannie.  The added treat of a coffee shop next door which provided alternatives to tasteless popcorn was a big plus.

And then I read a press release this week from BFMI, announcing its intention to cancel a screening of an Israeli film.  The reasons provided were both dishonest, specious and offensive.  According to the release:

“Bryn Mawr Film Institute is not a political organization. We don’t endorse or oppose any causes. In past years, we have not regarded hosting a screening from the Israeli Film Festival as a political partnership or taking a stance on any issues. This was our feeling when we arranged the 2024 screening many months ago. However, as the situation in Israel and Gaza has developed, it has become clear that our showing this movie is being widely taken among individuals and institutions in our community as an endorsement of Israel’s recent and ongoing actions. This is not a statement we intended or wish to make. For this reason, BMFI is canceling the sole screening of the music documentary, The Child Within Me. 

BMFI is a safe place for civil and nuanced conversations about diverse stories. For the well-being and safety of all patrons, BMFI will not be a location for anger and violence. For those who wish to partake in an IFF screening, there are upcoming screenings at other venues.”

There are several things that are so wrong with this press release, that one article and one columnist are hardly enough to explain the depths of the offense.  But let me try.

First, the BFMI, while saying that it is not political has in fact caved to politics.  That is duplicitous.  The fact that they have caved to politics is evident from the penultimate line, where it states that “for the well being and safety of all patrons, BFMI will not be a location for anger and violence.”  The only people who are bringing the anger and violence these days are the Free Palestine protestors who are attacking Jewish individuals in our cities, blocking traffic, yelling slurs at the top of their lungs and bastardizing the word “genocide.”  It is clear that the BFMI caved to these protestors, who have in fact taken credit for the movie cancellation.

So the BFMI lies.

Next, the BFMI is engaging in censorship, while pretending to do the exact opposite.  The last line of the press release states that those who “wish to partake” in a film from the Israeli Film Festival can do so “at other venues.”  As the Church Lady might have said, well isn’t that special.  The BFMI is telling those of us who would have liked to seen this film that we can take our bigoted carcasses elsewhere where, maybe, we can find similar troglodytes and genocidal beasts to share the experience.  This is evident from another sentence in the release, which says “it has become clear that our showing this movie is being widely taken among individuals and institutions in our community as an endorsement of Israel’s recent and ongoing actions. This is not a statement we intended or wish to make.”  In other words, stupid people who condemn Hamas and what it has done to innocent Israelis who are responding to a genocidal attack on women and children, we don’t agree with you.  Go away.  And take your dirty currency with you.

So the BFMI takes sides.

I think that if we step back for a moment and look at this situation with apolitical eyes, if that is at all possible, we see an organization that calls itself apolitical deciding to bow to pressures from a very small minority of misguided people.  If you were to poll the patrons of the BFMI, you would likely see that they oppose this move.  The appropriate thing to do would have been to perhaps add a film about the plight of Palestinians, if you wanted to achieve “balance.”  But that was not done.

What was done was to erase a film that had nothing to do with the conflict in Gaza and tar it with the same brush used by a tone deaf United Nations.  For this, and for this alone, I will never again set foot in the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, and I invite all of you to do likewise.