San Francisco Film Society Oral History Project Interview with ...

there’s a blackout. Spike and Peter, with flashlights, came on stage and did standup for 45
minutes to keep the audience there.
JEANNETTE SHAHEEN: From what I heard, no one left.
JEANNETTE ETHEREDGE: No one left. I think one woman left, but she left before the
blackout. I guess she was offended.
JEANNETTE SHAHEEN: Back in those days we didn’t have cell phones or anything like that.
We were across town in the Mission at the Frieda film, which was packed—a thousand people.
And we didn’t hear until we all met up at the end of the night that there was a blackout.
JEANNETTE ETHEREDGE: Yeah, because it was in the Marina.
JEANNETTE SHAHEEN: Here you’re not communicating because there’s no way to
communicate. Somebody may have called the Mission theater to try and get in touch with us, but
all this is going on. Well, that just wouldn’t happen today. It’s funny. We were also working off
of one computer in those days. We all shared a computer.
SHEILA CADIGAN: So how would you characterize the ’80s, let’s say? There was this period
of upheaval and then sort of a healing process began in the mid-’80s.
JEANNETTE ETHEREDGE: I don’t know. What does “healing process” mean?
SHEILA CADIGAN: Continuing festivals into the—
JEANNETTE ETHEREDGE: You know what? They’ll always have Festivals, not because of
the board and not because of the executive director and not because of the higher-ups. It’s
because the people who work there and the volunteers and the people all around are the people
that keep that thing going. Because they’re the ones who are passionate. And it’s always going to
happen, regardless of what goes on up top. Half the time, the board doesn’t know shit about
what’s going on in the office. And it’s the people who work there—the staff and the
volunteers—that make that Festival. I don’t care who the director is, or was. But it’s true.
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