Clark Art Screens 'Girlfriends'

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — On Thursday, Feb. 20, the Clark Art Institute screens the latest installment in its Hollywood Auteurs film series, "Girlfriends" (1978), at 6 pm in the Manton Research Center auditorium.

Presented in partnership with Images Cinema, this series captures the explosion of creativity, critical acclaim, and box office success that Hollywood directors found after the fall of the studio system.

According to a press release: 

When her best friend and roommate abruptly moves out of their Manhattan apartment to get married, Susan (Melanie Mayron) finds herself adrift in both life and love. A wonder of American independent cinema by Claudia Weill (who, when she was admitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a director in 1981, was one of only four women ever to have received that honor), Girlfriends is a remarkably authentic vision of female relationships that has become a touchstone for makers of an entire subgenre of films and television shows about young women trying to make it in the big city. This 1970s New York time capsule captures the complexities and contradictions of women’s lives and relationships with wry humor and refreshing frankness. (Run time: 1 hour, 26 minutes)

Free. Accessible seats available; for information, call 413 458 0524. For more information, visit clarkart.edu/events.

 


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Mount Greylock School Committee Sends FY26 Budget to Member Towns

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock School Committee on Thursday voted unanimously to send its member towns a fiscal year 2026 spending plan that calls for increases of about 7 percent in the assessment to Lanesborough and 8 percent in the assessment to Williamstown.
 
The committee's annual public hearing and vote on a spending plan for the next academic year concludes a process that began in earnest for the panel in December.
 
That is when the School Committee first heard the budget requests from the middle-high school. At its January meeting, it heard the budget priorities for the district's two elementary schools.
 
The budget approved on Thursday reflects some of the requests from each of the three schools, but the majority of the $1.37 million hike to the district's gross operating budget is related to cost increases outside the district's control, interim Superintendent Joseph Bergeron explained.
 
A so-called level service budget, with no increase in discretionary spending, would drive nearly $1 million of that $1.37 million, Bergeron explained.
 
The non-discretionary increases include $550,000 related to a 16 percent increase in the district's health insurance costs, $340,000 for "contractual obligations, borrowing, transportation and supplies/services cost increases" and a reading specialist position at Mount Greylock that is driven by demand for special education.
 
As for costs that fall outside the concept of a level-service budget, the FY26 spending plan includes more money for 1-to-1 paraprofessionals ($100,000), a new elementary school math curriculum to replace one that is nearly 30 years old ($90,000) , classroom projectors for four classrooms at Lanesborough Elementary School ($30,000), expanded professional development for staff in math and literacy ($56,700) and the addition of two new teachers at Mount Greylock, one in Spanish and one in the Wellness Department.
 
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