For only the second time, North Hempstead, Great Neck and the Gold Coast are in the spotlight. All this week, and continuing through the weekend, the Second Annual Gold Coast International Film Festival is underway at various venues throughout the town.
The festival comes in the midst of a presidential election and on the heels of the second presidential debate, at Hofstra University, where such lofty issues as education, gun control, jobs, the economy the conflict of war and peace resolution were waged.
But the events are connected and not just by geography.
Indeed, in answer to Nina Gonzalez question about gun control, both Obama and Romney said better education was a key to mitigating gun violence (albeit they both were tamping down the bigger issue, though Obama did say he supported renewing the ban on assault weapons while Romney said the answer to gun violence was two-parent households (“But gosh, to tell our kids that before they have babies, they ought to think about getting married to someone — that’s a great idea because if there’s a two-parent family, the prospect of living in poverty goes down dramatically.”)
Here at the Gold Coast International Film Festival, where the audience gets to experience not just the films but very often meet the filmmakers as well, the stories are so common about how the arts – being able to participate in theater, music or art in schools kept them from falling into a much darker place – or at least stay in school, stay on the path, and find their way to a productive life.
“Musical theater got me through high school – I played Nathan Detroit. There were days I don’t think would have gone to school were it not for theater. I get it,” Great Neck Schools Superintendent Tom Dolan told me when he was affirming that North Middle School would in fact have the same resources as South Middle School to put on this spring’s musical production, even as it still adjusts to the tragic loss of Dan Tomaselli, who gave so many young people their exposure to theater.
It is most appropriate that one of the major events during this year’s film festival is a 50th anniversary showing of “West Side Story,” which portrayed a modern-day Romeo & Juliet, with the gangs of New York’s West Side stepping in for the Montagues and Capulets. The movie is set where Lincoln Center is today and where the film will most appropriately be screened, at NYIT on Broadway, with two of the film’s stars, George Chakiris (“Bernardo”) and Russ Tamblyn (“Riff”). That famous song, by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, “Officer Krumpke” sums up the problems facing urban youth that too often leads to violence.
The arts are about kids getting insight into themselves or gaining an understanding into a subject in a different way – history, for example (“Les Mis,” “Cabaret” both which were performed by our high schools last season). It is the discipline to memorize a part, the teamwork to put on a show that builds character, and the applause and experiencing success that boosts self-esteem so that child would have the inner fortitude to resist unsavory peer pressure.
This was apparent some months ago during the Great Neck Historical Society/Great Neck Library screening of a documentary about Spinney Hill, where many who grew up in that neighborhood noted that a big factor in growing into successful adults was the opportunity to be in a music and theater program.
Our community through our schools, Levels program and Great Neck Arts Center has provided extraordinary (in this day) opportunities for our kids to realize their full potential. Many leave here and go off and pursue a career in the arts, such as Adam Kantor (who made his Broadway debut in “Rent,” appeared in “Avenue Q” and we hear will be returning in a show based on the film “Diner”); still others give it their best shot and then pursue other things, and still others become doctors, lawyers or teachers but express that creative passion in other ways.
That’s the “me” of the arts.
There is also the “we” of the arts.
Films are “where art, music, dance and drama intersect,” says Regina Gil, the founder and executive director of the Great Neck Arts Center and Gold Coast International Film Festival. They make us see, think and appreciate things differently. From where we sit or stand, we can be transported into the life experience of someone else, some place else, some other time. We can be brought out of our own bubble.
Actually, there is a song that encapsulates that sentiment: “Somewhere.”
It is quite remarkable that the theme to “West Side Story,” just as Romeo & Juliet, remains so relevant, even as the landscape has changed, and speaks to us through generations, connecting us through centuries. Recognizing our place in that continuum of civilization is a humbling and important realization that shapes how we view our place in society.
Many of the films in the festival bring such different experiences into our own sensibility The feature documentary in this year’s Gold Coast International Film Festival, “Orchestra of Exiles,” for example, tells the story of the four-year odyssey of Polish violinist Bonislaw Huberman which culminates in the founding of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (screening Sunday, Oct. 28, check the site, goldcoastfilmfestival.org).
The arts have another important role in society: they do not just inform and sensitize us, they also provide escape, a release valve for stress and despair that might otherwise take a more destructive turn.
There is also the “us” of the arts.
The arts provide a path to economic development and revitalization. Communities around the country which have seen obsolete industries disappear have transformed into arts meccas.
Look at Brooklyn. It has become a literal hub for live music and has drawn a whole new population of artists and creative people.
We were just up in Yonkers, where the Beczak Environmental Center, picturesquely set right on the Hudson River, on one Saturday night each month turns into the Urban H2O, hosting “live music and free beer”. That, too, is breathing new life into a neighborhood that had been down in the dumps.
You can see it in our own neighborhoods: the Paramount Theater in Huntington, the Landmark in Port Washington, the Freeport Arts Council and our own Great Neck Arts Center.
Festivals are significant events that create an urgency to visit – think Aspen, Austin’s South by Southwest, Woodstock (New York) Film Festival, Tribeca – and can infuse millions of dollars into a local economy desperate for a way to stop the spiral of property taxes.
Millions you say? Consider that the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, with 43,000 attendees, generated an overall economic impact of $62.7 million for the state of Utah, supported over 1,500 jobs, generated over $18 million in media exposure and provided millions in tax revenue.
“If you are a merchant, a restaurateur, if you even live out here, this will raise the bar, how this North Shore, this Gold Coast of ours is perceived,” Gil has said. “It’s been many decades since the Gold Coast was perceived as a center for culture and the arts. This will attract visitors, business, possibly future residents, and possibly give a boost to a film industry… The festival will raise the profile for the film industry here.”
The arts are an important investment that pays dividends in the economy. You only need to reflect how vigorous the area around Lincoln Center is to appreciate how this cultural complex has revitalized what had been a slum and a breeding ground of poverty and violence (in fact, the real-life setting for “West Side Story”).
But such monumental institutions, events and attractions don’t happen by themselves. They are the creations of committed, talented, devoted individuals and survive on their strength, ingenuity and commitment.
In the case of the Gold Coast International Film Festival it is Regina Gil, who had already created the Great Neck Arts Center virtually from scratch, building it into a regional center for visual and performance arts education for everyone from tots to teeterers.
The quality of the programming and exhibits that is offered at the Arts Center year-round is dazzling – not just showcasing established artists and performers who share their knowledge and experience, but in giving opportunities to newcomers and up-and-comers.
But alas, I fear, the Great Neck Arts Center is under-appreciated by the Great Neck community, taken for granted.
As a nonprofit without a generous endowment, it struggles for financing each and every year.
Gil, as founder and executive director, has proved ingenious at finding ways to not just have the Arts Center survive, but thrive and be a substantive cultural powerhouse, putting Great Neck back on the map.
Indeed, at the very first event of this year’s festival, “Conversation with Budd Burton Moss & His Hollywood Friends,” a free event held at the magnificent NYIT de Seversky Mansion (built at the turn of the 20th century by the DuPonts as a summer “cottage”), one of those friends with the famed Hollywood agent was Keira Chaplin, the granddaughter of the legendary Charlie Chaplin.
Gil took this moment to announce that the Gold Coast International Film Festival has entered into negotiations with the Chaplin Association in Paris and the Chaplin Museum in Vevey, Swizerland for the 2013-14 Gold Coast International film Festival to feature an authorized 100th anniversary celebration of Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp, with workshops, seminars screenings.
“It is very tough to get permission,” Gil remarked afterward. “[The Chaplin family] are very protective of Charlie’s image. There will be international celebrations and tributes that will be unauthorized. This will be an authorized commemoration.”
It is most fitting to have an official commemoration here, As historian Steven Gaines writes in a superb article about Great Neck in the Elliman Real Estate Fall/Winter portfolio book (they are a sponsor of the film festival) actress Paulette Goddard was born in Great Neck to a poor family and returned to Great Neck as a wealthy woman and Chaplin’s wife.
They lived in Great Neck for a time and Charlie Chaplin had the headquarters of United Artists, the film company he formed with Lillian Gish and Douglas Fairbanks, in the same building that the Great Neck Arts Center now occupies, adjacent to the Squire movie theater, Gil added.
Now, the plot thickens again: in order to insure that the Great Neck Arts Center is rooted for perpetuity so it can survive the ups and downs of the economy (now down), the arts center is in negotiations for the Town of North Hempstead, through its Business & Tourism Development Corporation (the town’s Local Development Corporation), to purchase the space that Great Neck Arts Center now occupies.
That was the ingenious solution devised by Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman
Under the arrangement, the town will purchase the space for $3.5 million which the Great Neck Arts Center will use to pay off its mortgage and use the excess to cover certain administrative costs. In exchange, the arts center will also pay the town rent, and also make available cultural programs town-wide.
In essence, the Great Neck Arts Center will emerge as the Gold Coast Arts Center, reflecting a townwide focus.
This arrangement is anticipated to keep arts center solvent for 10 years, and in the meantime, generate new revenue streams, such as a new fee structure (not yet decided).
“This is a townwide approach to the arts, which we’ve been working on,” Kaiman commented. “We have arts project in Westbury, Port Washington, Roslyn, Manhasset. There is some synergy. There is a need for the arts from a cultural perspective and an economic development perspective. Our goal is to take this broader perspective. We think it will generate additional benefits for the town.”
A bold and innovative approach to be sure – and Kaiman clearly has shown his appreciation for what a strong cultural foundation can mean to a community, having championed the launch of the film festival and providing seed money to get it going.
But Gil explains that it is not a radical idea for a municipality to own the building housing an arts organization – it is much the same model that is used by New York City, which owns the building that Carnegie Hall occupies, and the building that is the illustrious Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“There are many New York gems that the municipality owns,” Gil said. “It’s a legal relationship that facilitates the relationship of not-for-profit arts groups whether small like mine or enormous like Carnegie Hall that are deemed valuable to the cultural life of the community.”
“The goal is to insure the survival of an arts center in the town of North Hempstead and to make that the way the library, the schools, that it remains in perpetuity in the community, which would facilitate things like the Gold Coast festival and all the things we do,” she added.
I hope that Kaiman can pull this off and is just another example of the out-of-the-box thinking he applies to complex solutions. This would be an important addition to along and growing legacy in the town (he is on a short list to become CEO of the Long Island Power Authority), a legacy distinguished and achieved by virtue of his political courage.
The arts have a certain permanence, a legacy of their own, to be sure, but so much of art is about experience – fleeting moments, serendipitous encounters, emotional responses.
There is still time to experience the Second Annual Gold Coast International Film Festival, with events through Sunday, Oct. 28.
For tickets and box-office information for the films, programs, and events of the
2012 Gold Coast International Film Festival, visit www.goldcoastfilmfestival.comor the Great Neck Arts Center, 113 Middle Neck Road, Great Neck, NY 11021, 516-829-2570
For more information, including enhanced film synopsis, times, dates, schedule,
specific screening and events venues, visit: www.goldcoastfilmfestival.com
