The filmmaker Saul Levine has left his position as professor at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design after being accused of ‘harming students’ by screening of one of his films.
Speaking via Facebook Live, Levine claimed that he had been forced into early retirement after being accused of ‘sexual harassment’ for showing students his 1989 film Notes After Long Silence. The film includes footage of the avant-garde filmmaker and his partner having sex, and Levine screened it in class to aid a discussion about film editing.
The screening was the subject of anonymous complaints from students, leading to a meeting with college administrators that the artist described as an ‘ambush’. Levine, who has been at MassArt for 39 years, is described on the university faculty’s website as ‘the foremost dissenting filmmaker in America’.
