CHICAGO — Halfway through coffee with Emily Long, the new executive director of the Gene Siskel Film Center, we had a little linguistic misunderstanding. She mentioned an upcoming September Film Center retrospective of banned films, curated by the center’s programming director Rebecca Fons; I heard the word “band,” not “banned,” which led to a minute or two of crossed wires and suspicions (mine) of a slight stroke (false alarm) before we sorted it out.
Raised mostly in the Chicago suburbs, Long succeeded longtime Film Center executive director Jean de St. Aubin in May. “I’ve always wanted to run a theater,” she told me.
The Film Center, working under the auspices of the School of the Art Institute, has long been part of SAIC, although its two-venue facility on State Street has a way of feeling a fair distance from the rest of the SAIC buildings. Long and I talked about that relationship between the Film Center and its educational umbrella — and why, among other things, she’s heartened by the surprise success of the Film Center’s early 2023 “Settle In” series, spanning the hypnotic 7.5-hour Béla Tarr ruminator “Sátántangó” to Krzysztof Kieślowski’s 10-hour “Dekalog.”
The turnout was so nice, they’re doing it twice: A new set of titles comprises “Settle In,” the sequel, coming in early 2024. “That’s not necessarily my movie taste,” Long says, with a laugh. But I love the people who love it!”
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: You grew up in Hinsdale?
A: My family bounced around, and landed in Hinsdale, where I went to middle school, high school. Went to U of I in Champaign-Urbana and got my undergraduate degree in theater. Moved right away out to New York and got my master’s degree in dramaturgy and script development at Columbia University. Then I stayed and spent six years working on Wall Street —
Q: When people say “working on Wall Street,” what does that mean, exactly?
A: Right. Well, I finished my graduate thesis and I needed health insurance. At Columbia or anywhere, really, you basically walk across the stage (to get your diploma) and they hand you your first bill. I was an executive assistant for the managing director of global wealth, first at Bank of America, and then at Morgan Stanley. I managed a lot of calendars, travel, presentations, disaster recovery work. This was 2006 to 2012. An eventful six years. I met a lot of people you typically don’t meet when you have two theater degrees.
I was on Wall Street during the day and spent nights and weekends doing theater stuff, and then some media literacy work in the nonprofit development world. Then I lucked into the assistant director of development role at Film at Lincoln Center. And then came back to Chicago for a whole mess of personal reasons. My dad had just died; my mom still lives out here. My husband at the time (now deceased) was really struggling with alcohol, and we thought it was time to leave New York. Back in Chicago, I got the development role at Kartemquin. And then the job popped up here at the Siskel.
Q: You’re six weeks into that new job. How does it feel right now?
A: We’re on a really good swing. We’re still building back from the pandemic. It’s hard to understate how damaging that was for theaters, particularly for art house theaters.
Q: The older art house audience was the most resistant to coming back, right? Very few people called that one.
A: Right. On the plus side, we’re getting some new audiences in. But we want to see more of our old friends come back. The value proposition of going out for a night at the movies has to be different now. It can’t just be what you’re putting on the screen. It has to be the entire experience, from when you walk in the door to when you leave the theater. That’s what the Film Center and every other art house theater person I know is working on: How do we overcome the convenience that exists on the couch?
Q: So what do you point to on the Film Center calendar from the last year or so when you’re looking for reasons to be optimistic?
A: For one thing, “Drive My Car.” A lot of people turned out for that. I wasn’t at the Siskel yet, but that was something people just wanted to see, this three-hour Japanese drama. It wasn’t any secret it was going to be on HBO Max (now just Max) but we were running it exclusively in Chicago. It got great press. We ran it for something like three months. It was the right problem to have, balancing that long run with our other commitments.
The other good sign was Rebecca’s “Settle In” series, which was also a big hit. We’re doing it again in early 2024. That’s a unique theatrical experience.
Q: How does development at a nonprofit arts institution vary from place to place?
A: The Siskel is part of the School of the Art Institute, and we work closely with the school’s Office of Advancement, which is effectively our development department. The work draws a lot on my background in theater and audience work. Persuasive writing; creating arguments; that’s basically what you’re doing when you write a grant proposal. You need to be persuasive about why you’re deserving of support. And what the detailed plan is, once you get that support.
At an organization like Lincoln Center, membership is a huge piece of it. They have a very complex membership structure, which starts at $85 (per year) and goes up to $25,000 and beyond. Figuring out a system to manage that is … complex. But I enjoy it. Finding a way to manage something is enjoyable to me. Kartemquin was about production, not exhibition. It’s not selling tickets or selling parties. When I was at Lincoln Center, for example, I could say, “Well, for X-amount of dollars I can get you in a room with Kate Winslet.”
Maybe the Film Center is somewhere in between Lincoln Center and Kartemquin. Ultimately it’s all about building back from the pandemic, building on your programming. Building out sponsorships and partnerships. We’re lucky to have the support of the school; most art house theaters don’t have that. One of my missions is to better integrate the Film Center with the school, and better integrate the faculty and students with this place. But the school’s been nothing but respectful of what we do.
Q: Later this year, what can we expect?
A: In September it’s a series devoted to banned films. We’re living in a time of censorship and of banning materials — books, mostly, but not only books. This hasn’t been an easy seven, eight years for the country. For so many reasons. But when we all quarantined, I think a lot of us realized the value of shared cultural experience.
Some people came to realize that they prefer to stay in isolation and watch movies that way. But a lot of people realized how much they missed going out and being around other people, sharing a laugh or a gasp at a movie.
