On the Passing of Mary Jane Coleman, Founder of Sinking Creek / NaFF
June 22, 2010 by filmnashville
Filed under Nashville Film News
Mary Jane Coleman, Founder of Sinking Creek / Nashville Film Festival, Passes“Mary Jane Coleman continues to live on through Nashville Film Festival and its commitment to independent and innovative filmmaking,” says Sallie Mayne, Executive Director of NaFF, 2004-present. “Each year, we honor her for her passion and vision of the Sinking Creek Film Celebration with the COLEMAN SINKING CREEK AWARD, proudly given to a director whose work personifies the spirit and history of the festival. We are incredibly grateful to build on such a remarkable history.“
Numerous articles have been written about Mary Jane – we are including the one written in her home town..
The Greeneville Sun
BY JOHN M. JONES JR.
EDITOR
Mary Jane Coleman, of Cottage Drive, who became nationally known as a pioneer in the encouragement of independent-filmmaking, died at her home Saturday from the lingering effects of a severe stroke suffered some 10 years ago.
Mrs. Coleman, 86, the wife of widely known Greeneville attorney N.R. “Nat” Coleman Jr., was for some three decades a leading figure in the arts both locally and in Tennessee as a whole.
She founded the Sinking Creek Film Celebration here in 1969 after becoming interested in the field of independent film-making, which was at the time a little-recognized area of the fine arts either regionally or nationally.
In a June 1987 interview with The Greeneville Sun, she explained why she created the festival.
“There was an international festival in Atlanta, but I wasn’t interested in that. I have no time to promote Hollywood films.
“Independents use film as an artistic tool, and express themselves in their films — things like injustices being done, documentaries.
“The [Sinking Creek] festival is for showing the work of young artists whose work hasn’t been seen. I wanted the work of young artists to be seen.
“There was no festival in the South for independent film-makers, so I decided to try to do one.”
She served as the Film Celebration’s executive director and artistic director for more than 20 years.
MOVED TO NASHVILLE
Under her leadership, the festival became nationally known and highly respected in its field, with substantial growth in entries.
In the first four years the actual competition was held on the campus of Tusculum College, which, along with the Greeneville Arts Guild, was an original co-sponsor of the event.
Because of its growth, the festival was moved from Greeneville to the Vanderbilt University campus in Nashville in 1972.
The Film Celebration’s headquarters continued to be at her home in Greeneville, however, and Mrs. Coleman continued to serve as event’s Artistic Director until the early 1990s. She retired from involvement in 1997.
NOW NASHVILLE FILM FESTIVAL
In 1998 the Sinking Creek Film Celebration was moved from the Vanderbilt campus to a different Nashville location, the name of the event was changed to the Nashville Independent Film Festival, and the focus of the festival was broadened considerably.
The name was shortened to the Nashville Film Festival in 2003.
It remains the oldest continuously running film festival in the South and one of the oldest in the United States.
Now hosted at the Regal Green Hills Stadium 16 theatre complex in Nashville, the festival states on its Web site that since 2004 it has doubled attendance to 23,000, screening more than 250 films from 48 nations around the globe.
Its Internet Website emphasizes that the festival dates its history from the founding of the Sinking Creek Film Celebration in Greeneville in 1969.
HONORED FOR HER WORK
Mrs. Coleman was awarded the Golden Phoenix by the Atlanta Film Festival in 1972 for what that festival said was her outstanding work in encouraging film education and student film-making.
In addition, the Southern Appalachia International Film Festival has recognized her promotion of the cinematic experience through education in film production, the exhibition of film, and the celebration of the cinematic artist.
The festival annually presents three awards in her name.
In 1973, the Sinking Creek Film Celebration received a Governor’s Award in the Arts from the Tennessee Arts Commission (TAC).
A commission spokesman said today that the awards, now known as Governor’s Arts Awards, were created in 1971 “to recognize extraordinary contributions to the arts and achievements with state, regional, or national impact in whatever form they may take.”
The awards are, the spokesman said, “Tennessee’s highest honor in the arts.”
FOUNDING MEMBER OF TAC
Mrs. Coleman was also instrumental in the foundation of the Tennessee Arts Commission and was appointed by Gov. Buford Ellington as a founding member of the commission in 1967.
She was reappointed to the commission in 1968 for a five-year term and served until 1973.
Also in 1967, Mrs. Coleman played a major role in the establishment of the Greeneville Arts Guild, later renamed the Greeneville Arts Council.
In recognition of her many years of promoting the arts in Greeneville and Greene County, the Council in 2000 established the Mary Jane Coleman scholarship program for the benefit of a deserving Greeneville/Greene County college student.
Coincidentally, the 2010 award is to be presented Tuesday at an Arts Council meeting.
‘IT TOOK OFF’
J. Clement “Clem” Allison, professor emeritus of art on the Tusculum faculty, recalled in an interview Sunday that he assisted Coleman, the late Professor Dave Behan of the college faculty, and others in facilitating arrangements for the Film Celebration-related events in the first few years, when all activities were conducted in Greeneville and the judging took place at the college.
Allison indicated that he was not surprised when it became necessary to move the judging to Nashville.
“It had developed to the size that it needed a bigger venue…. It took off!
“She was such a promoter that she was able to get some of these [independent- film] bigwigs from New York, Los Angeles, and other places to come to Greeneville to judge.”
In addition, he said, “She sent out all this literature all across the country to get people to submit films. She did most of the writing for it herself.”
Allison, a longtime leader in the Greeneville Arts Guild/Council, also worked with Coleman extensively in Arts Council matters over a period of more than 20 years, including some of the “Film Flam” galas during the 1970s and 1980s.
During the years after the Film Celebration moved to Vanderbilt, the annual “Film Flam” events were held to maintain a strong local connection with the Film Celebration and raise funds to help support it. They stopped in 1998.
‘MULTI-TALENTED VISIONARY’
“Mary Jane Coleman was a multi-talented visionary who wanted, more than anything else, to bring children and their families into contact with high quality art and artists,” Allison wrote in an email to The Greeneville Sun in response to a request for his perspective on her impact and contribution.
“Toward that end she almost single-handedly established the Greeneville Arts Guild in the late 1960s with the support of the Greeneville Youth Builders.
“As a consequence, the Arts Guild, under Mary Jane’s leadership, sponsored spectacular exhibitions of original art of national stature here in Greeneville.”
EDUCATION A PRIMARY FOCUS
He noted that, when she founded the film festival a few years later, education was a primary focus.
“As a visionary,” Allison wrote, “Mary Jane saw the need for independent, short films that could educate and nurture the creative imagination of children and young adults.
“At the same time, she wanted young film-makers to be able to produce their own films independent of the large film companies.
“Her pioneering vision for new types of creative and educational films, and her willingness to help new, unknown film-makers to gain recognition, led her to establish the Sinking Creek Film Celebration.”
DU BRISKS PARTICIPATED
Marilyn du Brisk, artist-in-residence and director of Arts Outreach at Tusculum, recalled Sunday evening that she and her husband, Wess, retired Tusculum associate professor of Mass Communications, met Mrs. Coleman soon after their arrival in Greeneville in 1984.
“Mary Jane learned that Wess’ background and experience included film-making and asked him to volunteer his expertise for Greeneville’s Sinking Creek Film Celebration.
“We both participated in the local ‘Film Flam’ fundraisers for several years as well as organizing the judging of films at Tusculum College.
“When her long-time [co-director], George Griffin, started talking about retirement, Mary Jane asked Wess to take over as technical assistant for the week-long Sinking Creek Film Festival at Vanderbilt University’s Surratt Center in Nashville.”
Wess du Brisk agreed to do so, and Marilyn du Brisk also assisted with the judging period in Nashville in a variety of ways related to hospitality and overall facilitation of what had by then become a lengthy, multi-faceted event.
VIDEO TUSCULUM INVOLVEMENT
In 1993, after Mrs. Coleman had stepped down as artistic director of the festival, “Wess asked [her] to help him start ‘Video Tusculum,’ an independent film festival for young film-makers (grade school through college).
“She willingly acted as artistic director, and the program enjoyed a successful five-year run until other national programs started including the same target audience.”
Marilyn du Brisk added, “Mary Jane took great pride in the fact that the ‘Sinking Creek Film Celebration’ was the first festival in the United States to give recognition to and celebrate independent film-makers and their art.
“[She] became enormously respected by the ‘non-hollywood’ film-making experts and educators.
“Her favorite film genre was the experimental film, which she felt represented the true art of cinema. Her energy and enthusiasm were infectious, and she was an excellent and persuasive speaker.
“Wess and I look back on our years with Mary Jane and the Sinking Creek Film Celebration/Festivals as an exciting and memorable chapter in our Tennessee experience.”
‘LAID KEY GROUNDWORK’
Efforts this morning to reach a spokesman for the Nashville Film Festival were unsuccessful, but Tennessee Arts Commission Executive Director Rich Boyd, of Nashville, recalled Mrs. Coleman with fondness and respect in a telephone interview.
Boyd served as a member of the Arts Commission staff from 1973-75, then returned to the Commission staff in 1984 as deputy director. He was named executive director in 1999.
He said he had known the Colemans since 1973 and had visited in their former home here, “Creekside Farm,” from time to time over the years in connection with Sinking Creek-related activities besides being in contact with the festival in Nashville.
“She gave voice to independent film in Tennessee and on a national level,” he said. “We [the Arts Commission] knew how respected Mary Jane was and the immense amount of travel that she did sharing her passion for independent film.
“I think the success of what has become the Nashville Film Festival and other [independent] film festivals in the state and perhaps in the country was because of the groundwork that she laid…
“She was innovative, and that innovation was based on a true passion and love she had for independent film.
“In that sense I think you can say she was a visionary — certainly when you look at the popularity [of independent film] and when you consider the films and the film-makers that were screened, beginning with the Sinking Creek Film Celebration.
“That was testament to what she saw that none of the rest of us saw at that point.”
He added, “I think beyond her love for independent film-making was the graciousness that met you at the front door when you went to Creekside Farm.
“She was just a gracious Southern lady who loved East Tennessee, loved the land. She loved that farm, the views [from it]. And Nat Coleman was the epitome of a Southern gentleman.”
SERVICE ON JUNE 26
A service celebrating Mrs. Coleman’s life is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 26, at St. James Episcopal Church in Greeneville, with a luncheon reception following in adjacent McMillan Hall.
Link to full article and photo http://www.greenevillesun.com/story/309982
