Independent filmmaker Rebecca Snedeker ’95 screened a rough cut, or unfinished print, of her film “By Invitation Only,” a documentary that addresses the intersections of gender and race in the rituals of the Mardi Gras holiday in New Orleans at the CFA on Monday. This was the first audience to see a print of the film.
Interweaving her own family history with historical information as background, the film largely chronicles the journey of a young woman, during the debutante season, as she becomes queen of her family’s respective society, a process that until the making of the film, has been largely kept secret.
Dating back to 18th century New Orleans, the societies have their origins in the cotton, rum and slave trades that were exploited by a select group of individuals. As the city and country evolved, these men established themselves in what was then New Orleans, the upper-class neighborhood located to the north of New Orleans proper.
During the winter, their daughters would come down to the city, taking part in balls and galas associated with the Mardi Gras holiday. Eventually, this evolved into what is now the debutante season, a process of maturation for many young women and men in these tight and exclusionary social circles that reaches its apex around Mardi Gras.
“One thing we wanted to do was to…challenge traditional documentary filmmaking, which has often been a white anthropologist or filmmaker going into very often a nonwhite environment and being sort of voyeur,” Snedeker said.
These days, the process still continues, but there is much controversy within the city surrounding the racist and sexist mentality these groups promote.
“I didn’t realize how backwards it is…how people today are holding onto these really weird traditions…that are rooted in slavery,” said Becka Linden ’06, from Virginia.
Thanks to the efforts of some, like Snedeker, this process is changing. According to Snedeker, a loss of the commodities that provided money to these families before is also effecting a transformation.
Produced and directed by Snedeker, the film was written in collaboration with colleagues Isaac Webb and Julie Gustafson, Snedeker’s mentor for several years.
“She and other members of the New Orleans filmmaking community have taught me a lot, you know…have taught me everything I know, actually,” Snedeker said of Gustafson.
Though still in the process of editing the film down from its 87-minute running time, Snedeker said she hopes to see the film screened at film festivals eventually, as well possibly being used for educational purposes.
According to Snedeker, much of her funding came from the Independent Television Service (ITVS), an organization that administers congressional funds to independent producers in exchange for distribution rights. ITVS works to attain distribution deals with PBS and its affiliates for the independent filmmaking programs “P.O.V.” and “Independent Lens,” but also contracts them from selling the product to other networks, like HBO.
“It’s like an addiction,” Snedeker said of the whole filmmaking process.
Snedeker did not pursue Film Studies at Wesleyan, majoring instead in Fine Art major with a focus in painting. According to Snedeker, after graduation she moved back home to New Orleans, thinking her stay would be temporary. While there, she started out working small jobs to support herself as she painted. She soon began writing for a local art review. From there, she was hired as a writer to research different neighborhoods in New Orleans for another documentary film. After that, it was just a short jump into the process herself.
Because of her family’s tradition of membership in debutante societies, Snedeker spends quite a bit of time in the film presenting interviews with their opinions and reactions to the process.
She also interviews her mother, a former debutante queen herself.
“I felt like she was one of the first interviews where she really spoke from the heart; he wasn’t scared about what she was saying, so she had separated herself from the tradition,” Snedeker said.
Snedeker is the first woman in her family to shirk this tradition of her ancestors, refusing to take part in the debutante process or attend her Uncle’s rex coronation a few years ago.
“I never questioned them growing up…until I came to a different region,” said Linden, mirroring many of Snedeker’s sentiments.
Though still heavily involved in post-production on “By Invitation Only,” Snedeker expects her next project to examine the relationship of water and land in New Orleans and how it affects the community.
The screening is part of a series put on conjointly by the American Studies and History Department as well as the Center for African American Studies. The series continues on Monday with a screening of Kenneth Greenberg’s film “Troublesome Property,” a documentary about Nat Turner. It is at 7 p.m. in Shanklin 107.
“To see it starting to come together is so heartening, but I feel a lot of gratitude to people who encouraged the project,” Snedeker said, “but it is grueling.”
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