Belmont partnered with the historic Belcourt Theatre. while the organization is renovating its 90-year-old building, to screen 2016 Oscar® Nominated Short Films on Feb. 6 & 7 at the R. Milton and Denice Johnson Center. The screenings included three feature-length programs comprised of short films in animation, live action and documentary. The screenings were well-attended and included a sold-out show on Saturday, Feb. 6.
The films shown ranged in length, style, story and subject—including Pixar’s animated short “Sanjay’s Super Team,” the first-ever Oscar nomination Kosovo film “Shok,” a documentary focused on filmmaker Claude Lanzmann and his experience making SHOAH – “Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah” and the story of the “body collectors” tasked with gathering Ebola victims in Liberia.
The partnership came about through two meetings with Belcourt Executive Director Stephanie Silverman and Programming Director Toby Leonard, Belmont alumnus, when Chair and Professor of Belmont’s Motion Pictures Program Barbara Doyle first arrived at Belmont. “We are very excited about partnering with the Belcourt Theater on this initiative. It will be a wonderful opportunity for our students to see and by inspired by Oscar quality work,” said Doyle. “It was an extremely successful collaboration. The audience had a chance to see all the Oscar nominated shorts, and they raved about our theater. We look forward to more collaboration in the future.”
Two student workers, Blake Pipes and Meloney Rhodes, helped with the screenings by working in the theater, distributing information about the screenings and checking students in at the door.
With a total cost of $87 million, Belmont’s 134,000 square foot Johnson Center boasts $3.6 million in technology resources and specialized equipment. With multi-functional spaces offering classroom, lab, performance, production and research options, the facility features two theaters that serve as screening rooms, mixing theaters and a lecture space.
