Semester Cinema to Shoot its Next Feature Film in Berkshires
LENOX, Mass. — Kingdom County Productions, a Vermont-based film and performing arts non-profit, has selected Lenox as the new home for its Semester Cinema indie filmmaking and experiential learning program.
At Semester Cinema, thirty film professionals mentor and collaborate with forty-five college film and theater students to make an ambitious feature film for national release.
Students participate from a dozen liberal arts colleges including Swarthmore, Hamilton, Bowdoin, Spelman, Skidmore, Mount Holyoke, and Wesleyan, to name a few.
Students will spend seven weeks in classes, workshops, and guest lectures, examining the script, exploring cultural contexts, and working to discover and articulate artistic possibilities for the semester's central projects. They then spend the remainder of the semester working in substantial roles on the physical production of the films. The program's next iteration is set to run from late January to early May 2026 and will reside on the campus of Shakespeare & Company.
The narrative project for this coming spring, which will be shot in the Berkshires, will be an edgy film noir that combines Henrik Ibsen's Tony-winning play, "An Enemy of the People," and Dashiell Hammett's crime novel, "Red Harvest."
Students learn all technical aspects of filmmaking, including producing and production management; camera, lights and sound; production design and art direction; costume design; and editing and post-production. The program also includes an expanded documentary (TBA) planning and production unit.
Students receive a full semester of academic credit and a professional film credit on IMDb. Semester Cinema also works to help students develop added confidence and enhanced skills in critical thinking, problem solving, flexibility, and collaboration. Past participants have gone on to find success in a variety of departments, including directing, producing, production design, casting, and grip & electric. In fact, program founder and director Jay Craven recently brought on an alumna of the program, Nicole Doerges, as a co-producer.
Semester Cinema was conceived in 2005 when Craven was working on his fifth feature film, "Disappearances," starring Kris Kristofferson. Craven was then a professor at Marlboro College and had found critical success in the film industry as an independent filmmaker. Semester Cinema works with professional actors, through the Screen Actors Guild - and past projects have featured Academy Award, Tony, and Emmy winners and nominees Bruce Dern, Jacqueline Bissett, Genevieve Bujold, Jessica Hecht, Marin Hinkle. Gordon Clapp - and Kristofferson.
As an introduction of Semester Cinema to the community, Craven will screen the program's 2022 project, Lost Nation, at the Shakespeare & Company Bernstein Theater on Friday, Nov. 7 at 7pm.. The film is set in Massachusetts and Vermont during the American Revolution and centers its story around rebel instigator and Vermont founding father, Ethan Allen - and pioneering Black poet and rights advocate, Lucy Terry Prince. Advance tickets for the screening are available at www.kcppresents.org.
Additional screenings & events open to the community are also planned for the Spring. Any businesses or individuals looking to support the program through community housing or services are encouraged to reach out to the program organizers.
