Cathy Repola, the National Executive Director of the Motion Picture Editors Guild since 2016, is stepping down from the role in January 2025 and is retiring. She’s worked for the union, which aligns with IATSE Local 700 in Los Angeles, in various capacities for 32 years.
Her announcement comes after the guild, through IATSE, just successfully negotiated a new three-year Basic Agreement contract with the AMPTP that provides higher minimum wages and more safeguards for editors and other post-production personnel against AI. (A recent short film created by AI that edits together sex scenes and car crashes shows how AI could impact editors.)
“Working for the Guild has been an extremely rewarding career,” Repola said in a statement. “I have always had a profound commitment to the Guild and our mission and a deep affinity for our members. Now, I have reached a place in my life where I want to shift my priorities to my loved ones and friends.”
The Motion Picture Editors Guild represents about 9,000 film and TV industry professionals in LA and New York — many of whom are editors, but mixers and sound editors are also included in their ranks.
“Cathy has been an indispensable leader for the Guild these past eight years,” Guild president Alan Heim said in his own statement. “She has helped lead us successfully through some of the most hard-fought and intricate contract negotiations in our history, and through many challenging times, and done it all with remarkable courage and grace. Whoever succeeds her will have some very big shoes to fill.”
Heim will be appointing a search committee to find a replacement for Repola who can take over when she leaves in January. She’s been a strong leader for the union, often unwilling to compromise over what she feels are basic protections for its members. In 2018, she was the only guild leader to oppose IATSE’s tentative agreement it had agreed upon with the studios. In the wake of that, IATSE president Matthew Loeb removed her from IATSE’s important P&H Plans board.
Reappointed at last to the board last summer, Repola told IATSE 700’s CineMontage Magazine (via Deadline), “Yes, I was removed in October 2018 and I don’t want to rehash all of that. Now that I have been reappointed, I will only say I think that IA President Matthew Loeb reappointing me was the appropriate thing to do.”
Hollywood’s unions are not done, however, after the resolution of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes last year and IATSE’s deal last month. While the Teamsters ratified a new contract of their own, SAG-AFTRA is again on strike, this time against video game companies, and the Animation Guild is set to begin its own negotiations soon.
TheWrap first reported the news.
