To: US-based TSGs
From: John Ackerly, Director, ICT
Date: July 10, 1997
Re: Strategic Planning; Preparations for Movie Releases
The upcoming release of two major motion pictures on Tibet - and State visits between Washington and Beijing - are opportunities the Tibet movement cannot afford to miss. We have drafted an outline of an action plan, called Tibet 2000, which we hope will be part of a coordinated effort in the U.S. Yesterday we mailed out 80 copies of Tibet 2000 to the principle Tibet support groups and activists in the United States. If your organization would like a copy contact us and we will send you one if we haven't done so already.
The next step is a more detailed plan focusing on the first event -
the release of Seven Years in Tibet on October 8 (only three months away!).
ICT is planning on devoting significant resources to activism around the release of the movies and, pending funding, we hope to be able to subsidize certain TSG activities.
Dozens of excellent activist ideas for the movie releases have been
aired on the internet (TSG-L) and elsewhere and some of them are incorporated in our draft plan. Primary activities we think TSGs and individual activists can engage in include:
1. Leafleting Moviegoers: ICT hopes to produce tens of thousands of brochures designed to hand to people exiting theaters which, a) give people an opportunity to take political action for Tibet (via tear-out postcard, etc.) and b) recruit members and donations for the group handing them out.
2. "Premiers": Every group can host their own "premier" on opening night by buying some or all of the tickets at a local theater and selling them to supporters at a premium. Many theaters may allow someone to introduce the movie and deliver a message to the audience. This could also be a press-worthy event. (As far as ICT knows, neither Disney or Sony are willing to do premiers with the more political Tibet groups, although the Kundun premier may partially benefit Tibet Fund, a national humanitarian organization.)
3. Tibet Week Activities: We are proposing a week of activities in early October called "Seven Days for Tibet." The purpose would be to have events which would create publicity for Tibet and for the movies with a targeted message to augment and capitalize from the millions of dollars Disney and Sony will be spending on non-political publicity. The Tibet movement needs to make the issue contemporary and show the international responsibility and opportunity to do something about it. All Tibetans who worked on either of the movies could be key to Tibet week events. ICT would be willing to produce a number of materials groups could adapt and use for their own, including: press releases, fundraising letters, points for op-eds and letters-to-the-editor, etc.
An equally important event to plan for is a State visit of Chinese President Jiang Zemin's to Washington, DC. That is covered more in our action plan. This fall, there will also be at least five new books, two national TV programs, and several new documentaries released.
Groups will want to engage in a variety of activities and fine-tune
their message to a variety of campaigns and purposes. But within diversity, we believe we can have the biggest clout this fall if we have cohesiveness and coordination, some continuity of message, and solid advance planning.
We want to get feedback on this by the end of July. Based on feedback from TSGs and individuals, we can determine how best to proceed and begin to produce action kits for distribution by the end of August.
