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

The first year he was there, he came to the opening—and I remember Marie-Pierre took him into
the theater—and when they got him on stage, she introduced him and he came on and started
telling the audience about the film they were going to see: “It’s very exciting.” We had four or
three different screenings at that time, on Opening Night. It wasn’t just one film. It was in the
Kabuki and it was different houses. She moved him from one theater to another and on the way
she would explain to him what the film was, and he’s such a quick study, that he would get up in
front of each theater and tell them about the film. And people would say, “Oh, he already saw the
film.”
SHEILA CADIGAN: And before him it was Art Agnos, and he had absolutely no interest in
film.
JEANNETTE ETHEREDGE: No interest at all.
JEANNETTE SHAHEEN: One time we got him to come to Opening Night. I don’t remember if
he spoke. But there really was not a lot of support from the city, and what we got mostly was
from Jeannette’s influence. We did have funding. We worked hard on that in the ’80s, on getting
the Hotel grant, and so forth. But in terms of real support from political figures here, it was pretty
much nonexistent during those years.
SHEILA CADIGAN: The city of San Francisco, as opposed to other cities, doesn’t have a big
tradition of supporting its own arts community, because there’s a philanthropic community here
that has a lot of means, and there’s an expectation that, people with means here should be
supporting this institution.
JEANNETTE SHAHEEN: But a big goal of the Festival—of the Film Society, I should say—is
for it to be looked at as an educational experience to get that support, rather than, “Oh, it’s two
weeks of a lot of films and glitz, and so forth.” Remember how hard we worked reaching out to
present it as educational?
JEANNETTE ETHEREDGE: Once again, it’s the staff. It always comes back to the staff.
SHEILA CADIGAN: Was there anyone you liked on the board, during all those years?
27