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

Williamstown Town Meeting Passes Progress Pride Flag Bylaw Amendment

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
10:49PM / Thursday, May 23, 2024

Mount Greylock sophomore Jack Uhas addresses town meeting on Thursday as Select Board member Randal Fippinger looks on.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — By a ratio of nearly 2-to-1, town meeting Thursday passed a bylaw amendment to allow the Progress Pride flag to be flown on town flag poles.

 

The most heavily debated article of the 40 that were addressed by the meeting was decided on a vote of 175-90, amending a flag bylaw passed at last year's town meeting.

 

Mount Greylock Regional School sophomore Jack Uhas of the middle-high school's Gender Sexuality Alliance opened the discussion with a brief statement, telling the 295 voters who checked into the meeting that, "to many, the flag is a symbol that, in our town, they belong."

 

The speakers addressing the article fell roughly in line with the ultimate vote, with eight speaking in favor and four against passage.

 

Justin Adkins talked about his experience as, to his knowledge, the only out trans individual in the town of about 7,700 when he moved to Williamstown in 2007.

 

"Most people, when I moved here, had never met a trans person," Adkins said. "Today, that is not the case. Today, many people in this room are free to say who they are.

 

"LGBTQ-plus youth still face a world where their basic being is questioned and legislated. … Flying a flag is, really, the least we can do."