Sarah Jacobson
Issue #20
1971–2004
By Rebecca Flint-Marx
Published: June 1st, 2004 | 12:00am
Filmmaker, organizer, and self-described “hell-raiser from the beginning,” Sarah Jacobson was the doyenne of D.I.Y. In an industry where independent cinema is now equated with anything containing a Weinstein, an Academy Award nomination, or a Hollywood star slumming for critical cred, Jacobson was a steadfast reminder that independent cinema could be just that: spirited, original, and true to its own terms. When Jacobson succumbed to cancer on Februrary 27, the indie world lost both a formidable force and a beloved friend.
Born in 1971 in Minneapolis, Jacobson did a stint at Bard College before moving to San Francisco to study film at the Art Institute. It was at the institute that she made her first film, I Was a Teenage Serial Killer, which she later described in an interview as the story of a “19-year-old who has a series of run-ins with various condescending men.” Her influences ranging from Jim Jarmusch to the punk scene to Sassy, Jacobson subsequently joined forces with her mother to form Station Wagon Productions, a company through which she developed, promoted and distributed her own films.
It was through Station Wagon that she made her first feature, Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore, for which Jacobson was the writer, director, editor, producer, and camera operator. The story of a teenage girl trying to deal with her burgeoning sexuality, Mary Jane got straight to the point with its opening scene, which showed its protagonist’s titular deflowering. The film proceeded to deal with topics like masturbation, how to have an orgasm, and the perils of a one-night stand, all against the backdrop of a small Midwestern town’s punk scene.
After Mary Jane debuted at the 1995 Chicago Film Festival and won a strong review from Roger Ebert, Jacobson, in true D.I.Y. style, promoted her film from the grassroots up, making stickers at Kinko’s and getting festival programmers to attend the Manhattan screening. Her efforts paid off when she was invited to Sundance, where Mary Jane enjoyed a warm reception. Jacobson subsequently continued to promote her work and spent much of her remaining time acting as a resource for other independent filmmakers, serving on film conference and festival panels, and contributing articles to Punk Planet, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and the indieWIRE Web site. She also moved to New York, where she did television work and made a documentary for John Pierson’s Split-Screen about another oft-neglected indie opus, Ladies And Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains. Through it all, she continued to work tirelessly on behalf of other female filmmakers, and joined a group of female directors headed by Allison Anders.
Although Jacobson is gone, her call for creative and financial innovation continues to reverberate. In a 1997 article for indieWIRE, she posed the question, “What is D.I.Y., you might ask?” Her answer will be relevant to anybody who has ever embraced the joys and struggles of getting her voice heard. "It’s a term,” she wrote, “co-opted from the punk rock movement, and it stands for Do It Yourself. For as buzzword-y as the label is, it stands for a very important concept in the independent world — the idea that you don’t need a big company or lots of money to validate you.”
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