Panel: Movies Can Work For Social Change

It is possible to make movies that will change the world, participants in a Saturday panel titled "Brave New World: Entertainment and Social Change" all agreed. Moderator Pat Mitchell, president and CEO of PBS, led the discussion of new technologies' impact on the dynamic between content and audience. Panelists included Robert Redford; MPAA chairman Dan Glickman; Jeff Skoll, founder and CEO of Participant Prods.; indie producer Bingham Ray; and producer Jake Eberts.

Several panelists said that last year's 8% downturn in boxoffice admissions could have a positive impact on content in the long run, forcing studios to abandon formulas to take more chances on smaller films. Ray called politically motivated entertainment such as Skoll's "North Country," "Syriana" and "Good Night, and Good Luck," as well as Focus Features' "Brokeback Mountain," a "resurgence of films saying things to people that matter. Rarely have so many films had so much impact."

Redford, who has made a career out of politically conscious moviemaking, from "All the President's Men" to about 40 documentaries, said that finding the right narrow niche for small films is the future. When he couldn't get Tony Hillerman novels about Native Americans made as movies, he gave them to Mitchell, who made them into telefilms at PBS.

"I am a tough-minded optimist, or realist," said Skoll, who described how he always wanted to make a difference with movies but had to make his fortune by co-founding eBay before he could realize his dream. "It's hard work, getting people involved in movies that affect lives," he said. "It is not easy to turn someone from a consumer of entertainment into someone involved."

Glickman told Redford that seeing "The Candidate" inspired him to run for Congress in Kansas; he eventually became Secretary of Agriculture.

Eberts has long insisted on only making movies that he cares about, from "Gandhi" to "Chariots of Fire." "Don't waste anything that you can't swear on your grandfather's Bible that you have to see made," he said.