“Everyone I know was just shocked,” said one longtime member of the Portland film community who requested anonymity to preserve professional relationships in that community. Days and even weeks later, those emotions were still raw. Among the most scathing commenters were many who had longstanding relationships with the Northwest Film Center, and whose emotions seemed to range from confusion to disappointment to anger. The initial reactions, as they often are on social media, were quick and unsparing. One thing seems certain: the direction that PAM CUT takes will be closely followed by a community of passionate filmmakers, educators, students, and cinephiles, all of whom will make their reactions known. It’s hard to know what to expect with any specificity, since both the vision and the language used to describe it have been, perhaps inevitably at this point, very fuzzy. The truth likely lies somewhere in the middle, reflecting longstanding tensions between the Portland Art Museum and its cinematic partner as well as the tectonic shifts of the last several years in the way Americans experience and interact with movies and moviemaking. Others, it seems to some, evince an intentional, or at least negligent, discarding of the Northwest Film Center’s institutional knowledge, employees, and core missions. Some were unavoidable, most notably the pandemic-induced shutdown that so rudely interrupted Dotson’s first (and last?) Portland International Film Festival. There are several reasons for the seeming abruptness of this change in direction under Director Amy Dotson, who was hired in 2019 following the retirement of longtime director Bill Foster. But…”, leading into a lamentation of the procedural and/or substantive aspects of the announcement. “Change is hard.” In the weeks since the Northwest Film Center announced its new name, PAM CUT, at the 2022 Cinema Unbound Awards, I heard that sentence, or some variation, from most of the more than a dozen folks I spoke with on the topic.įor some, the name change – it stands for “Portland Art Museum Center for an Untold Tomorrow” – served as an acknowledgment that the transmutation of the 50-year-old institution into something new was inherently difficult but undeniably necessary.įor others, it was followed by some form of: “I get it. She would also work with the curatorial teams of the Museum, incorporating her vast film and new media knowledge, as well as using her financial, commercial and foreign partnerships to promote the development of the Film Center as a world-class film and digital media production hub.Honorees of the inaugural Cinema Unbound Awards gather on the stage in March of 2020. Dotson would be responsible for the Film Center's overall vision, including strategic development, marketing, and guidance of the curriculum. In September 2019, Amy Dotson became the director of Portland's Northwest Film Center. In March 2022, the center was renamed the "PAM CUT–Center for an Untold Tomorrow". Allen Foundation for the Arts, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the Mt. Sponsors of the center include the National Endowment for the Arts, Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Cultural Trust, Washington State Arts Commission, Regional Arts & Culture Council, The Ted R. The center was located in Portland's historic Guild Theatre from 1998 to 2006. The center was founded as the Northwest Film Study Center in 1971, and incorporated into the Portland Art Museum in 1978.
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