Hampshire College

Ken Burns 71F was the featured guest at this year’s Amherst Cinema/Pleasant Street Theater benefit gala, which was held at Hampshire College on March 13.

Burns, who graduated from Hampshire in 1975, received an Academy Award nomination in 1982 for his first film, Brooklyn Bridge, and in the intervening years has directed and produced some two dozen works, including the memorable, eleven-part, multi-award-winning series The Civil War in 1990 and his most recent series The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.
 
Burns’s films have won ten Emmy Awards and two Oscar nominations, as well as Grammy Awards, the Peabody Award, and numerous other major film and television awards.

His current films in production include The Tenth Inning, an update to his 1994 epic Baseball, scheduled to be shown on PBS in 2010, as well as a three-part, six-hour history of Prohibition, tentatively set for PBS broadcast in 2011. Future projects already in the works include films on the Dust Bowl, the Roosevelts, the Vietnam War and the Central Park Jogger case.
  
“We’re thrilled to have Ken Burns as our honored guest,” said Carol Johnson, executive director of the Amherst Cinema and Pleasant Street Theater. “Not only has Ken focused on documentaries, a form of educational programming that is important to our mission, he achieves a standard of excellence with every film. We’re especially pleased to be featuring one of Hampshire’s most accomplished graduates.”

The Amherst Cinema and Pleasant Street Theater are independent, nonprofit theaters, presenting first-run film, critically acclaimed documentaries, foreign language cinema, retrospectives of classic film masterpieces, and plays broadcast live from Britain’s National Theatre in London. The cinemas host visits by filmmakers, writers, and directors and collaborates on special programs with area film faculty. 

The benefit was held in the Robert Crown Center at Hampshire College on Saturday, March 13, beginning at 6 p.m. The evening included a reception, dinner, and live auction. The gala, along with memberships and contributions, helps to underwrite the theaters’ programs.