Erin Wolf

Laura Martin

Rob McCuen

Milwaukee’s New Cellulloid Heroes

Everybody’s a dreamer and everybody’s a star and everybody’s in show biz, it doesn’t matter who you are. —The Kinks It’s the story of an event that’s long overdue. Of an idea whose time has finally come. It seems like a natural phase in the evolution Milwaukee’s urban identity, something the city and its leadership would have embraced years ago. But bringing to life the Milwaukee International Film Festival has been die kampf, in large part, of Dave Luhrssen and Louis Fortis. Long recognized as one of the city’s culture tastemakers, Dave Luhrssen is a lover of film. As Arts and Entertainment Editor of Shepherd Express, Luhrssen has had the luxury, as the weekly newspaper has grown, to hand off the lion’s share of the writing to the legions of freelancers who contribute the majority of the section’s weekly coverage. But he prefers, for the most part, to review the films himself. So it’s not surprising that an International Film Festival would be his brainchild. Not that he and Fortis, Shepherd Express Publisher and festival co-founder are the first to try. According to Luhrssen, “several people in the past decade have floated the idea. I know of two groups who got to the talking point, meeting with people, etc. but never got very far.” A film festival may seem like one of those things we should just “have,” especially for a city spoiled by public spectacles like Summerfest, the Big Bang and even the Circus Parade. But staging an event of this magnitude is no picnic. “To do this, you really need a group of people with a financial platform to stand on,” says Luhrssen. “It’s enormously expensive. It’s very hard for it to come to life from within a coffee shop with interesting people who have good ideas. It needs the kind of support that comes from access to the right groups and the pockets to support up-front funding.” So in the spring of 2002, Dave and Louis, after months of toying with the idea, batting it around over coffee and floating it to a few trusted colleagues, decided to get serious. Destination: Mid by Midwest But as the planning got underway, the question went beyond what (a film festival) to what, exactly. That Milwaukee filmmakers would be featured was never in question. But how to showcase them in such a way that the festival would attract the overall attention it deserved and be of interest a broad audience was a bit of a challenge. The duo, along with Programming Director Jonathon Jackson, came up with a brilliant solution. The festival would include a regional competition, now called Mid by Midwest, featuring the work of filmmakers specifically from the region. This would give the festival a one-of-a-kind programming track (this is the only festival in the nation to feature the work of Midwestern filmmakers) and create a logical place in which to spotlight Milwaukee filmmakers specifically. “It was one of those really obvious things” says Dave. “Like, why didn’t […]

November 2003

Dear Readers, I’m always hesitant to hail new heroes, especially when all I have to go by is a single action. With that disclaimer, my new hero (not displacing Chief Tonasket out there in Washington) is Nathaniel Heatwole. If you’ve been living in a box, Heatwole is the 20-year old Massachusetts lad who loaded a couple of Southwest Airlines flights with dangerous contraband like boxcutters and bleach on several occasions from February to September without getting caught, then told the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) about it by email on September 15. A month later, when they finally got around to reading it, they contacted Heatwole at the phone number he left them. He was promptly arrested and now faces up to ten years in prison. He claims he committed an act of civil disobedience out of concern for a lack of real airport security. The Fed, naturally embarrassed, is dying to prosecute him to the full extent of the law. U.S. Attorney Thomas DiBiagio has made his position perfectly clear. “This was not a prank. This is not poor judgment,” DiBiagio said. “This is a crime… ” Right he is. But what, exactly, is the nature of the crime? And, one could argue, who committed it? Also from the “scary but true file,” George Bush recently told Brit Hume in a Fox News interview that he doesn’t bother reading the news. It’s so bizarre that I have to print a portion of it here: HUME: How do you get your news? BUSH: I get briefed by Andy Card and Condi in the morning. They come in and tell me. In all due respect, you’ve got a beautiful face and everything. I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what’s moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who probably read the news themselves. But like Condoleezza, in her case, the national security adviser is getting her news directly from the participants on the world stage. HUME: Has that been your practice since day one, or is that a practice that you’ve… BUSH: Practice since day one. HUME: Really? BUSH: Yes. You know, look, I have great respect for the media. I mean, our society is a good, solid democracy because of a good, solid media. But I also understand that a lot of times there’s opinions mixed in with news. And I… HUME: I won’t disagree with that, sir. BUSH: I appreciate people’s opinions, but I’m more interested in news. And the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what’s happening in the world. HUME: Mr. President, thank you very much. Indeed. I don’t even have anything to add to that. Except that the hair on the back of my neck won’t lay down. Maybe some gel or something would do the trick, I don’t know. By now you’ve probably heard that the letters […]

Jeffrey Langlois

Jon M. Gilbertson

Brian Jones

Jason Keil

Milwaukee Colleges

The words “higher education” are loaded with meaning. While most would agree that it’s hard to get very far these days without at least some post-high school training, there are as many takes on what constitutes “education” as there are roads to it. For some it’s a Bachelor’s or better from a college or university that, right or wrong, is the required calling card for entry into many white collar professions. For others, it’s a certificate or Associate’s degree in a specialized field or an apprenticeship in a skilled trade. Our city has a rich history of fostering the long-term well being of its individual citizens. And while, through mismanagement or merely the unfortunate circumstances of a changing world (which is more true could be argued without end), much of the higher social conscience that shaped Milwaukee’s development has withered to some extent with time. We still have sidewalks in city neighborhoods, a robust (but shrinking) amount of urban green space and access to nutrition and health care for most children living below the poverty line. On the other hand, our parks system has become the city budget’s redheaded stepchild. As a population, we gave up an excellent trolley system without batting an eye, and have left our current transit system to an eternal struggle for viability. Poor families must work in what could be arguably termed conscription conditions in order to receive aid, forced to leave their children to be raised on the streets without parental guidance. As a community, there’s much to work through. Wisconsin still fosters higher education. Fortunately, higher education is an area where Milwaukee is still strong. Despite tuition increases and decreases in financial aid at both the state and federal levels, Wisconsin has continued to perform well nationally, according to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education’s study, Measuring Up 2002, in such standards of higher education as affordability (6th), completion (12th) and benefits from a degree. This last bears explaining, for although the state was ranked 41st, it tied or beat the top achiever (Colorado) in four of the nine sub-categories, including both measuring increased income from receipt of a degree. Our state’s overall score in the benefits index was brought down by studies done in 1992 and 1994 on adults demonstrating high level prose, document and quantitative literacy skills conducted by the Center for Education Statistics National Adult Literacy Survey, and the U.S. Department of Education, respectively. In the year 2000 (the last for which consistent data was found), 64

What the hell?

Dear Readers, I’d like to open this month with a question: What in the hell is going on in America? Have we been so successfully distracted by the “Iraq Conflict” and the near cataclysmic domestic situation that we don’t care about obvious attempts to undermine democratic process? So that’s two questions, but really, what does it take to make us mad these days? While America munches Doritos and consumes the laughably mismanaged Gray Davis recall like so much reality TV, 11 Texas State Senators are hiding in New Mexico (at press time), using the only constitutionally allowed means (breaking the quorum in the Texas Senate) of blocking an illegal redistricting, spearheaded by Gov. Rick Perry and House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R- Texas) and passed by the U.S. Supreme Court without legislative review. The new districting, which falls outside Texas’ legal frequency of once per US census, is a blatant effort to gerrymander US Congressional districts to a solidly Republican majority. Perry has called in The Departments of Homeland Security, Transportation and Justice to “help bring these guys back,” even though they’re not breaking the law. The Governor has indicated he will continue calling special sessions until the Republican redistricting plan is enacted, despite the fact that the Republican-controlled Texas Supreme Court recently rejected the Governor’s writ of mandamus filing to compel the Senators to return. Meanwhile, eleven Democratic state senators are exiled from their state, unable to be with their families, friends and constituents, for fear of being arrested. In the most recent indignity, Republican Senators voted to fine the absent Democrats up to $5,000 per day, and to revoke parking and other privileges for their staffs, for as long as the Senators are away. Needless to say, while these measures are mean-spirited, they have not been effective. Meantime, Ashcroft is on a stump tour of the country to garner support for the PATRIOT Act, parts of which are scheduled to expire soon. The Administration doesn’t want that, and they’re meeting with more opposition than anticipated. Of special note is that the Attorney General has cancelled his scheduled Milwaukee visit, the only stop in the state. No explanation has been given, so we must ask ourselves: does he feel adequate support won’t be found here, or is he confident enough in our habitually low voter turnout that he doesn’t need it? Read Richard Walter’s special We The People feature, “Hope Lives in Tonasket.” It’s the story of how a tiny town of mostly conservative farmers has passed a town resolution to protect the Constitution from “enemies of the state, both foreign and domestic.” The time to leave affairs of state in the hands of the “experts” has passed. I truly believe this country was founded on principles of Liberty And Justice For All, and the time has come to get off the couch and take notice. Use it or lose it: it’s a phrase never more loaded with meaning for each and every one of us. Back here in […]

Cynthia Vasques