Pittsburgh Filmmakers
Open-knowledge reference entry
Pittsburgh Filmmakers was one of the oldest and largest media arts centers in the United States, operating from 1971 to 2019.
The non-profit institution in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania began as a filmmaking equipment access cooperative founded by curator Sally Dixon in 1971. The co-op remained a pillar of the organization throughout its life, supporting projects that grew to include a NASAD-accredited film school, the Three Rivers Film Festival, and three repertory theaters—most prominently the Harris Theater, which remains in operation under the management of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.
Artist alumni of Pittsburgh Filmmakers include Peggy Ahwesh, Tony Buba, Greg Mottola, and Victoria Pedretti.
History
Starting in 1969, Chuck Glassmire hosted an experimental film series at the Crumbling Wall coffeehouse at 4515 Forbes Ave. The screenings drew a regular audience from the Carnegie Museum of Art across the street, where Dixon was in the process of launching the museum's Film Section (later Department of Film and Video), one of the first of its kind in the country. In 1970, Dixon raised funding for an expanded screening program, bringing visiting artists to town for in-person exhibitions and providing 16mm filmmaking equipment so that they could also work on new films while in residence. At first called "Pittsburgh Independent Film-Makers," her group secured a space in the basement of the Selma Burke Arts Center at 6118 Penn Circle South in East Liberty. They set up darkrooms and filmmaking facilities, and began to offer workshops in the use of equipment.
In 1971, the group formally incorporated under the name Pittsburgh Filmmakers, with Bob Costa (1971) as its first executive director, followed by Phil Curry (1971-1973) and Robert Haller (1973-1979).
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This entry incorporates text from “Pittsburgh Filmmakers” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.