Murray joins Berkshire Museum as Little Cinema Curator
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PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Amanda Murray has joined the Berkshire Museum staff as the curator of the Little Cinema.
In her new role, Murray will be choosing films for the weekly showings, as well planning special screenings, organizing film-themed talks and events, and improving the movie-going experience for Little Cinema audiences.
“Coming from both the museum world and the independent film world, I was so excited to learn that the Berkshire Museum is home to a thriving independent cinema. What a rare combination - and a rare opportunity for a film programmer,” Murray said. “In my own life I've relished opportunities to see the latest independent films at festivals and historic, small theaters around the country, and it's a joy to now be representing and programming such a unique venue for independent film.”
Berkshire Museum’s Little Cinema has been showing independent and foreign films for 66 years in downtown Pittsfield. Little Cinema is a single screen movie theater inside the museum; typically, one first-run, independent or foreign film is shown each week.
As the film curator, Murray will be developing new initiatives, such as presenting films and film-related programs that complement the Museum’s exhibitions and support the Museum’s mission to create inspiring connections among art, history, and natural science. She also will be working to increase awareness and visibility of Little Cinema in the community.
“I'm so grateful for the Little Cinema's audiences - for people in Western Massachusetts who seek out independent film and venues like ours. I look forward to getting to know our existing and potentially new audiences and finding out more about what they like and want to see. I'm eager to explore community collaborations around special screenings and discussions,” Murray said. “I'm especially excited to be a part of the Museum's broader effort to delight and engage visitors of all ages, and I look forward to planning film screenings and events that complement the Museum's eclectic and robust array of exhibitions and programs.”
Murray is a media producer, curator and filmmaker based in Western Massachusetts. With the independent production company Wicked Delicate Films, she produced the feature-length documentary The Search for General Tso, a 2014 Tribeca Film Festival premiere and 2015 Sundance Selects / IFC Films release. In 2013, she directed and produced World Fair, a short documentary about the 1939 New York World's Fair. The film premiered and won the Audience Award for Best Short Film at the 2013 Independent Film Festival Boston.
Before diving into documentary film, Murray was a curator of the Places of Invention exhibition opening July 2015 at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. She has produced programs and multimedia for the Berkshire Museum, Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, Lower East Side Tenement Museum, National Building Museum, Providence Athenaeum, and National Trust for Historic Preservation. Murray has a B.A. in American Studies from the College of William and Mary and a B.A. in Public Humanities from Brown University. She was born and raised in Birmingham, Ala.
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