GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
SECTION B
February 25, 1994
Evenings Out
by Doreen Cudnik
Nicole Conn, writer, director and producer of Claire of the Moon, was recently in Cleveland to appear at a benefit for the Maryann Finegan Project, the Center's assistance program for victims of hate crimes. Arranged by local production company Yes She Can Promotions, and held at the Metronome, the event brought many women together for an upclose and personal evening with this major player on the film scene. During her whirlwind weekend in Cleveland, Nicole, her assistant Jennifer Bergman and I had the opportunity to meet over coffee at Truffles Pastries on Cleveland's west side and discuss reactions to her film, upcoming projects and the future of Demi-Monde Productions.
Doreen: First of all, welcome to Cleveland. I hope you're having an enjoyable stay here.
Nicole: Yes, I'm having a great stay. The only thing is it's so goddamn cold here! I had my heating blanket on the night before I left L.A.—it was 50 degrees there and I thought that was cold. But it reminds me of New Jersey-that's where my family is from-so that's nice.
Tell me about Demi-Monde Productions. How did that come to be? What was your decision behind that?
Well, it started out essentially as a soleproprietorship, to sort of be the cover and
cap for all of my projects that I was working on, screenplays that I was writing. So, when I would send out stuff, I would send it out under the heading of Demi-Monde Productions, as opposed to just me. Now, DemiMonde Productions is in the process of trying to go public and raise money to create more mainstream features.
Define "mainstream" for me. When I say mainstream features, I'm talking about the Thelma & Louise's, the Fried Green Tomatoes. Except the difference would be that they would be made by women, as well as being women's stories. And hopefully, within that context, we'd like to produce a lesbian/alternative feature every two years.
Nicole, what interested you in filmmaking? And do you consider yourself first and foremost an artist, a businesswoman, an author-how do you prioritize your many roles?
Shooting for the moon:
Filmmaker Nicole Conn on lesbians, politics & mainstream films
The way I identify myself is first as a woman, second as a filmmaker and third as a lesbian. My focus is in that priority. I'm not political. I've gotten a lot of shit from the lesbian community for not being political, but I don't think that just because we're lesbians that everything we do has to have a political message. I think we can have entertainment just for the sake of entertainment. I think there's plenty of room for it—we don't have enough of it.
At some point, I gave up my dream of being a writer and went into accounting and became a business manager and a controller for a construction firm. When I quit drinking, I realized that there was never going to be anything more difficult than quitting drinking, so I figured, what the hell, I'll try it. And that's how I got back to my dream of being a writer and filmmaker.
So you're in recovery?
Yeah, I've been sober for nine years. So I'm real excited about that.
That brings up a lot of questions about the character Claire, but we'll get to that! (laughter). Do you work in any other media, or primarily express your ideas through film?
I'm also a novelist. I'm publishing my second novel in October of 1994. It's called The Bottom Line. Primarily, though I want to be involved in film. That's my true love. Tell me how Demi-Monde productions is different from other women owned and operated film companies. And how many of those are out there?
We've done some research on it and there are 26 women-owned film companies out of 1,526. The 26 that are women-owned are primarily owned by women who are "green-light" actresses, like Geena Davis and Bette Midler. They're not companies that are dedicated to doing films by and for women. They exist basically to bring in projects for the leads to do.
One of the things that we're trying to do is open up employment for women in film so that they can make women's films. And when I say "women's" films, I don't mean films just for a female audience. I mean films also for a men's audience that is sick and tired of all this violence and blockbuster-mania, and shoot-em up, kill-em stuff...
D: ... and sequels! Of the same tired formula... I mean who wants to see "Die Hard 37"?
Right. We want to make films that are really good stories and that feature strong
women as characters who aren't victims. Women who are living their lives. We want to make films from a woman's perspective, how women see the world as opposed to how men think women see the world.
Do you see yourself as a pioneer in this business, and what, if any, responsibility do you feel to other women in the industry that might be coming up after you?
First of all, I didn't really consider myself a pioneer until so many people said, "You're a pioneer." Just like lesbian music had a starting point and lesbian literature had a starting point, we are experiencing the very birth of lesbian cinema. We're going to make mistakes, but we need to do things the way we feel compelled to do them as artists. What I've discovered being a pioneer is that the paycheck sucks, but that it's an incredibly gratifying thing. But it's also a very frustrating thing because what happens is that your work gets looked at under a microscope. Claire of the Moon has been a very pioneering effort, and I think that in years to come it will be looked at in a little bit of a different light than it is presently.
So you're saying that a lot of the feedback that you've been getting from the community is that it wasn't "cutting edge" enough?
Exactly! It was too "mainstream," not Continued on next page