LACMA’s weekend film series gets extended -- but ‘still in jeopardy’

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There’s an adage in the movie business that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

But all the publicity, bad or otherwise, that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art received after it tried to eliminate its weekend film series last summer, then reversed itself after an outcry from cinema lovers, hasn’t greatly boosted attendance or advanced the museum’s bid to raise $5 million or more for an endowment to cover the film program’s costs.

The protests that saved the program included director Martin Scorsese’s open letter in The Times, asserting the importance of movie screenings in a museum context. But despite the high-profile backdrop to their fundraising efforts, LACMA officials say that financial support – presumably from film industry figures who’d be the logical donors to an L.A. film endowment – has not materialized.

The weekend film program still lives, and will for at least another fiscal year, LACMA officials said. But without the $5-million to $6-million endowment that museum director Michael Govan wants to raise to cover most costs, it will remain on life support.

“The film program is still in jeopardy,” Melody Kanschat, LACMA’s president, said last week.

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