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September 04, 2007 - Image 53

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The Michigan Daily, 2007-09-04

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The Michigan Daily

3F

Pfizer shuts A2 facility

By WALTER NOWINSKI
Daily Staff Reporter
In a devastating blow to the city
and region, Pfizer Inc. announced
yesterday that it would close its
massive Ann Arbor research and
development facility - eliminating
2,100 jobs.
At a hastily convened press con-
ference this afternoon in the Mich-
igan Union, Mayor John Hieftje
joined University President Mary
Sue Coleman and Gov. Jennifer
Granholm and other elected offi-
cials to address the job cuts.
University officials said the
announcement will not have a dra-
matic effect on University research.
Over the last three years, Pfizer
contributed about $12 million of
the University's roughly $800 mil-
lion research budget.
Stephen Forrest, the University's
vice president for research, said in
an interview with The Detroit Free
Press that Pfizer wouldn't neces-
sarily cut off research funding sim-
ply because they were no longer in
Ann Arbor.
In addition to funding research,
Pfizer supported a few fellowships
and had several joint training pro-
grams with the University, he said.
Many students had internships
at Pfizer that may now be in jeopar-
dy. In an interview after the press
conference, Coleman said the Uni-
versity would have to work with
local leaders, economic develop-
ment groups and small startups to
replace the lost internship oppor-
tunities.
"Having an internship in a small-
er company might be as good as or
a better experience for a student as
having one in a big company like
Pfizer," Coleman said.
She emphasized that it's impor-
tant for the University to work with
the city, state and industry to move
on.
"We need to make sure we are
doing everything we can to turn
this crisis into something that is
positive for the community," Cole-
man said.
At the press conference, Hieftje
spoke candidly about what the loss
of Pfizer, the world's largest phar-
maceutical company, would mean
for Ann Arbor. He said that the

PHOTO BY ANGELA CESERE/Daily " " _""___""""""__ ________________
GRAPHIC BY BRIDGET O'DONNELL/Daily ANGELA CE5ERE
The 177-acre Pfizer facility located near Gov. Jennifer Granholm speaks about the closing of the Ann Arbor Pfizer facility in the Michigan Union yesterday as University President Mary Sue Coleman looks on.
North Campus will soon be empty. Granholm said the state will start a stick-with-Ann-Arbor campaign to encourage the laid-off workers to stay in the area.

disappearance of the city's largest
taxpayer would have an impact on
property tax levels in the city and
would hurt the city's schools.
Still, he cautioned against
despair.
"This is certainly a blow to the
city, but it is not one from which we
cannot recover," he said.
Pfizer paid $13 million to the
city's coffers in 2006, more than
4 percent of Ann Arbor's property
tax receipts.
While the University is the larg-
est landowner in the city, it does
not pay property taxes because it is
a public institution.
Pfizer was also one of the larg-
est charitable givers in the city,

supporting the United Way, youth
programming and the University
Musical Society.
Pfizer was the largest non-
University employer in the city
and had recently invested heav-
ily in upgrading and expanding
its sprawling Ann Arbor research
labs, which abuts the eastern edge
of North Campus.
But despite Pfizer's massive
physical presence in Ann Arbor,
Granholm said the firm's real
assets were the skilled employees
who worked there. She said she was
determined to keep those skilled
employees in Michigan.
At about 1 p.m. yesterday, nine
Pfizer employees gathered at Ash-

ley's Pub on State Street to discuss
the news over lunch and a drink.
Pfizer instructed employees not
to speak with reporters, and none
of the group gathered at Ashley's
would comment.
"We are going to have a whole
stick-around-Ann-Arbor campaign
for those employees, because we
want them to stay," Granholm said.
The loss of Pfizer was particu-
larly painful for Granholm because
biomedical research was one of the
fields that she was hoping to fos-
ter as a way to diversify the state's
economy as the once-dominant
automotive industry continues to
struggle.
With a low unemployment rate

and the promise of new industries
like Google moving into the area,
Ann Arbor had been one of the few
economic bright spots in the strug-
gling state.
But the loss of thousands of
high-tech jobs yesterday cast doubt
on the city's economic future.
"We are in the same boat as
the rest of the state of Michigan,"
Hieftje said at last night's City
Council meeting.
Granholm said Pfizer's decision
was part of a global restructuring
and had nothing to do with the
local labor pool, the state's taxes or
the state's business climate.
"There is nothing Michigan
could have done to prevent this

from happening," she said.
Pfizer officials announced the
closure of the Ann Arbor plant yes-
terday morning as part of a larger
restructuring. The firm, which has
not introduced any blockbuster
drugs since Viagra in 1998, is los-
ing market share to generic drugs.
Many of its patents are set to expire
over the next five years.
It aims to shed 10 percent of its
global workforce by 2008. In addi-
tion to the Ann Arbor facility, Pfiz-
er will close two plants and four
research facilities in the United
States, Japan and France.
This article originally
ran Jan. 23, 2007.

AAFF returns, free of censorship

By KRISTIN MacDONALD
Associate Arts Editor
The Ann Arbor Film Festival kicked off
Tuesday night with cocktails, coffee and Stuc-
chi's ice cream only to quickly add provocative
filmmaking to its list of stimulants. This is
the AAFF, a five-day fiesta of all things avant-
garde and a proudly surviving vestige of Ann
Arbor's more progressive-minded past.
The screening began with an earnest trib-
ute to deceased AAFF participant Helen Hill,
a one-time Festival judge and lifelong film-
maker, and the Festival couldn't have selected
a more appropriate start than the presentation
of Hill's quirky 16mm introduction to amateur
filmmaking. The short film not only combined
animation, live action and gentle humor to
outline the medium's different formats (and
home-bathroom darkroom techniques) but
spoke to the dedication and can-do spirit
required of independent filmmakers to realize
their art. Filmmaking's a fun process, but it's
a demanding one, too, and the piece honored
the commitment of these self-reliant artists as
much as its inclusion honored one such artist
in particular.
For the AAFF not only showcases the best
of independent film from the world over but
strives to develop a supportive community for
those filmmakers as well. This week's AAFF
schedule features much more than just short
film screenings, with several filmmaker spot-
lights, public lectures and Q & As and even a
party or two. There's also a special program
planned to introduce wary newcomers to the
admitted obtuseness of experimental film
- a panel discussion self-mockingly entitled
"What the Hell Was That?"
After all, independent film's reputation for
obliqueness is not entirely undeserved. One
piece in Tuesday night's line-up was practi-
cally the definition of esoteric: a single six-
minute shot of Russian writer Maxim Gorky's
1896 review of an early Lumiere brothers' film,
slowly dissolving on what looked like a can of
paint (turn-of-the-century intellectualism lit-
erally visualized as watching paint dry).
This is not pure cinema. This is plain old
art, in a medium that provides a seemingly
endless opportunity for fresh expression, and
the AAFF, by projecting these impossibly

diverse pieces in the cavernous grandeur of
The Michigan Theater, offers an all-too-rare
way to experience it.
The prominent back story of this year's
festival is then all the more baffling. Ordered
by the state of Michigan in a well-publicized
battle to rein in its controversial content or
face funding cuts, the festival boldly chose the
latter, cutting ties with the government rather
than censor its material. It's the state that's
losing out. In a fight over First Amendment
rights, the AAFF promises to be a lively oppo-
nent, with indignation to spare and the ACLU
as back-up (as well as, apparently, friends with
pocketbooks). -
But why sever connection with one of the
most respectable names in avant-garde cine-
ma at all? The AAFF, now 45 years old, is one of
the world's oldest experimental film festivals,
the proving ground for now-big names (Gus
Van Sant, Michael Moore) and longtime home
for artistic statements that are truly less sub-
versive than explorative. The festival combed
through more than 2,000 submissions to com-
pile this year's array and, if Tuesday night's
opening is any indication, it's a set of works
with as much humor and innovation as politi-
cal commentary.
One of the night's most satisfying entries
was Frederic Moffet's "Jean Genet in Chica-
go," an inventive 25-minute short billed as an
"experimental documentary" which uses the
experience of French writer Jean Genet as an
angle for approaching the political agitation
of late '60s Chicago. Wearing cut-out faces of
famous Genet-contemporaries such as Wil-
liam S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, stand-
in bodies reenact history in front the bustling
background of the modern day city.
The following piece, Matthew Lessner's
"By ModernMeasure," makes amore poignant
comment about the decided lack of such politi-
cal agitation in our own generation. As a pair
of young lovers bond over their mutual love
of Taco Bell, Mountain Dew and Doritos, the
short film's French narrator calmly mentions
the falling of bombs over Iraq half the world
away. When the two profess to love Che Gue-
vara, they tellingly can't articulate why.
William Noland's meditative "Occulted,"
meanwhile, turns its scrutiny from the people
to The Man. Its contemplative study of Lon-

don's heavy-duty government surveillance
zeroes in on various unknowing passerby,
watching in long, slow-motion takes as they
patiently stand on curbs and metro platforms,
doing absolutely nothing to merit concern.
Such watching characterized a good deal
of the night's offerings, which is perhaps pre-
dictable, considering the voyeuristic nature
of film itself. That hyper self-awareness was
prominent in such pieces as Francois Miron's
"Hymn to Pan," a dreamy if unrevelatory
scene of a dancer being filmed, and a German
entry titled "Kristall," which cut together old
Hollywood bedroom scenes to examine the
forced intimacy of people before mirrors. Its
focus on old film clips is equally representa-
tive of a particularly popular independent film
technique - the use of innovative editing and
a fresh soundtrack to cull new meaning from
old images. As film inherent plays with per-
spective, it's a perfect medium to find meaning
through juxtaposition.
Of course, not every piece works, but that's
natural of any art form with "experimental"
in the title. One 15-minute collage of various
pop-culture images in particular went about
14 minutes too long, pairing its repetitive mix
of Hulk figures and baby dolls with tinny, pin-
ball-like'80s pop riffs in a kinetic explosion of
color that could only be palatable as a screen-
saver. The messages of media inundation
and gender stereotypes may be there, but are
doomed to little impact when all you can think
after several moments is how much you want
to shoot the messenger.
At least you're thinking. The festival's com-
mitment to intellectual exploration is pal-
pable and has only increased in the face of the
government's censorship efforts. Even in the
midst of its legal battle, however, the AAFF
is keeping its characteristic sense of humor.
The lobby's merchandise table features a new
addition this year, courtesy of the innovative
folks over at local candy-maker Schakolad
- a slab of fine chocolate imprinted with the
word "Censored." The AAFF has created its
very own censor bar, and it's indicative of the
festival spirit: whether you like what you see,
whether you even " get" all of it, at the end of
the day you're guaranteed plenty to chew on.
This article originally ran March 22, 2007.

BEHIND THE CONTROVERSY
Ann Arbor's annual film festivals provide a
medium for independent artists to showcase their
work. But the past few years, state legislators
have threatened to slash funding if the artists
screen content lawmakers find inappropriate.
Rather than submit to censorship, the film festival
decided to forgo state funding the last two years,
Some argue that the festival should cease
seeking state funding to avoid censorship alto-
gether. They claim that art is relative and it is
impossible for anyone to judge the decency of
such a subjective medium. Others believe that
state funding is necessary for the festival to con-
tinue its trend of excellence. They contend that
art is a public good that earns revenue for Ann
Arbor through jobs and tourism.
Regardless of whether the state funds future
festivals or not, the Ann Arbor Film Festival will
continue contributing to the eclectic nature of the
town. It is a tradition that will add breadth to your
college experience should you choose to take
part in it.

The lobby of The Michigan Theater was filled with boozers and shmoozers for the opening night of the Ann Arbor Film Festival.

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