Berkshire Student Film Festival at Images Cinema

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Images Cinema presents the inaugural Berkshire Student Film Festival on Saturday, May 4.

There are two screenings of the same program, at 4:30 and 7:30pm. Jury Prize Winners will be announced at the end of the 4:30pm screening.

Images Cinema is located at 50 Spring Street.

The Berkshire Student Film Festival has been guided by Images Cinema's Student Engagement Committee, consisting of students from Bennington College, Buxton School, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA), and Williams College. A call for film submissions of 10 minutes or less for high school and college students was made in January 2024, with efforts to contact all the relevant schools within a 25 mile radius. 

"A diverse range of young Berkshire residents, enrolled in schools public and private, secondary and collegiate alike, are featured on this wide-ranging, genre-spanning, and highly textural program of eighteen works," said Minnie Lerner, an Images Cinema intern who has helped organize the festival. "Friends, family, and film enthusiasts are invited to come celebrate the next generation of creatives local to our region."

A screening committee consisting of students from Bennington College, Buxton School, MCLA, and Williams College, and the Images Cinema directors reviewed all the submissions. The 18 selected films represent students from Bard College at Simon's Rock, Bennington College, Burr and Burton Academy, Drury High School, Lenox Memorial High School, MCLA, McCann Technical High School, Mount Greylock Regional High School, and Williams College. 

The Berkshire Student Film Festival has six jurors, all working in the film industry either as filmmakers or film programmers. The three jurors reviewing fiction films are Dien Vo, Emily Cohn, and Miguel Rodriguez. The three jurors reviewing nonfiction films are Alexa Green, Catherine Orr, and Phil Wall. An audience award will also be awarded based on responses at the 4:30pm screening. 

Admission for the Berkshire Student Film Festival is on a sliding scale, $0 — 20. Ticket are strongly encouraged in advance, and can be reserved at: https://www.imagescinema.org/movie/berkshire-student-film-festival-2024-2

The event is supported by Adams Community Bank

Williams Grads Reminded of Community that Got Them to Graduation

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:14PM / Sunday, June 02, 2024

The graduates heard from two speakers — Phi Betta Kappa speaker Milo Chang and class speaker Jahnavi Nayar Kirtane. The keynote speaker, Lonnie Bunch, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, was unable to attend and recorded his speech for playback. See more photos here.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williams College said goodbye Sunday to its graduating seniors.

 

And a representative of the class of 2024 took the time to say goodbye to everyone in the community who made students' journey possible.

 

Milo Chang, the Phi Beta Kappa speaker for the class and one of two students to speak at Sunday's 235th commencement exercises, explained that the term "Williams community" applies to more than those who get to list the school on their resumes.

 

"It includes everyone who has shaped our experiences here, from loved ones back home to the dedicated staff members who make campus their second home," Chang told his classmates. "During my time at Williams, we've seen this community step up in remarkable ways to support us."

 

Chang talked about the faculty and staff who gave their time to operate the COVID-19 testing centers and who greeted students before they could take their first classroom tests in the fall of 2020, and the dining services personnel who kept the students fed and somehow understood their orders through the masks everyone was wearing when this class arrived on campus.

 

And he shared a personal story that brought the message home.

 

"We often underestimate the power of community until we experience a taste of its absence," Chang said. "I remember staying on campus after our first Thanksgiving at Williams, after most students went home to finish the semester remotely. I remember the long hours sitting in empty common rooms. I remember the days you could walk through campus without seeing another student.