They Shoot Divas, Don't They?

Mike, I'm confused about these 'managerial differences.' You're telling me there's no creative friction here. And there's no financial dispute. So why did Rosenberg get the boot? Was he leaving the cap off people's water bottles?

"People will not interpret my comments as just leaving the cap off somebody's water bottle," Perez bristles. "If I read in the newspaper that there were 'managerial conflicts' within an organization, that would be enough for me to understand exactly what had happened. I would not need specific personal details about someone who was part of an organization I believed in, that I was a member of, that I funded."

Steve Satterwhite

Robert Rosenberg, ex-director of Miami's Gay and Lesbian Film Festival

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More About

• Robert Rosenberg
• Mike Perez
• Harvey Burstein
• Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
• LGBT Issues

Now we're talking about unacceptable personal conduct?

"Correct."

This sounds like a social situation where you could've used some outside help.

"That's how it sounds to me also."

So there was no money for an office therapist?

"No," Perez chuckles ruefully, breaking the tension. "That wasn't one of the budget line items we approved." With a sigh, he continues, "I'm sad to see Robbie not with us ... but board members were quitting, staff morale was starting to dip, and we knew we had to balance out doing something quickly with the need to keep the festival going forward."

Perez says that program manager Carol Coombes will be stepping up as an interim director, and he's confident that the quality of the festival will be undiminished come this year's edition in April. "As terrible as all this is, I think Robbie would find comfort in the fact that this is something many other organizations have gone through." Perez adds that the scenario even has its own term in the nonprofit world: founderitis, where emotional attachments impede an organization's health.

A series of acrimonious e-mails exchanged between Rosenberg and various board members in the weeks leading up to his departure clarify some of this backroom tension. There are charges that Rosenberg snooped into his colleagues' office e-mail, and counter-accusations that effective personnel, such as long-time festival publicist Lisa Palley, were being fired simply for siding with Rosenberg. Meanwhile sources say administrative director (and ex officio board member) Philip Matthews was given a salary bump to $60,000, a sum overshadowing the $40,000 paid to Rosenberg, his ostensible superior.

Amid the screaming matches, the overall vibe is more akin to a junior-high lunchroom spat than a nationally regarded nonprofit arts group power struggle: The statutes of an employee manual are bitterly thrashed over -- no small feat in an office with only four employees -- and Rosenberg is given written warnings for "insubordination" after storming out of a meeting.

"We cannot continue to cater to your emotional outbursts," Perez writes to Rosenberg in one e-mail, "and will no longer be bullied by your threats of resignation. There are much greater issues at stake for the [festival] and the South Florida gay & lesbian community. Staff and board members (including Fran and I) agree that you are the problem and are not contributing to the solution."

Back at Wild Oats, Kulchur gets blunt with Rosenberg.

With so many folks saying you're insufferable -- three boards have completely turned over since the festival's 1999 inception -- isn't it possible that it's not them, it's you?

Rosenberg arches an eyebrow and flips the equation: "If there's been such a massive turnover in the board and staff every year, and I'm the only constant -- yet every year the festival gets bigger and better -- what does that say about my abilities as director?"

Hubris aside, Rosenberg's right. Yes, as Perez and some festival backers have insisted, it is possible that another director will be located to fill Rosenberg's sandals, someone with his artistic flair, international contacts, and unique understanding of Miami's disparate gay tribes. But it would seem even more productive to simply fire the six-member board and start over again. It's a lot easier to replace administrators than visionaries, however much of a handful they might be. In the meantime, not just the gay community, but the entire city is the poorer for Rosenberg's getting axed.

We'll leave the last word to Nat Chediak, another expelled film festival director who's been saddled with the "difficult" label. "My advice to Robbie's successor?" he offered to Kulchur with a knowing laugh. "It's the same advice I'd give to my successor at the Miami Film Festival, or anyone coming to Miami to head an arts organization: Pack a parachute."