First Screening

The Toll I'm Happy To Pay

Just over a week ago, in Toronto, I had my first screening (private and invite-only) of the film that has taken over my life for the past six years, for better or…. better, I’ve decided

Producer Patrick Hamm. subjects Lusiana Lukman, Katherine Needleman, me.

.I’m always a bit surprised at how the mental can manifest itself into the physical. Although I was sure to invite only allies and other film subjects and their friends, I found myself basically gobbling Tums in the lead-up to the screening. After the day itself, I felt as though I had run a marathon (or at least what I imagine that to feel like) and been clocked on the head. I could barely leave bed for 40 hours.

Even now, in the face of repeated psychosomatic issues, I still find other excuses (oh, I probably ate something bad, I probably have a little cold, maybe I didn’t sleep so well last night).

You’d think I’d learn something in 40 years. But somehow the midwestern Canadian in me thinks that I should just be able to work for half a decade on a film about the worst time in my life, hear the stories of hundreds of others, go speak to many of them, make it into a film featuring many others and representing thousands in our small world of music and millions in the larger world, and somehow be OK the first time it’s seen by more than three people. Like I should just be able to get up the next day and be all hunky dory, and, I don’t know, toast a bagel.

I’ve taken a week away because the screening struck me very deeply. Some of the film’s subjects, and the producer and executive producer were there. One story which was previously not known is now making its way into the world. Anyone who was present is now aware of a tiny part of the vast festering rot and corruption which luxuriates within classical music – a microcosm of the greater world.

I saw that night, and have since heard, that my film affected many, in just that small theatre.

Panel of Scott St John, Katherine Needleman, Lusiana Lukman and myself with moderator Aisha Jamal

Let this be a preview of coming events.

Not just another article which folks forget about a week later, not just another Famous Man who keeps his big job even though everyone knows about his decades of “predilections” and he gets a few askance looks in the hallways. Not just one more school saying “whoops” for ruining the lives of so many children and women and forcing gag orders upon them. Not just one more orchestra siding with men and throwing the women aside like garbage. This is a movie which puts them all together.

It’s time to stand up and fight. Musical talent has been known to be gender-equal for decades now, yet music institutions willfully ignore that and continue their white man-centric belief system. That means there are a hell of a lot of mediocre men out there with jobs they don’t deserve, with a vested interest in keeping women down.

I’m travelling this week to a big musicology conference. I’ve heard that women have received death threats at this conference for even intimating that women have a bit of a hard time in the field. Seriously. Albeit a little while ago now.

Well, we’ll see how it goes, eh.

Lara