By its twelfth anniversary, the Bright Lights Cinema Series has introduced three generations of Emerson students to hundreds of independent films, highlighting social issues and marginalized perspectives. It was a pillar of the community in large part due to the work put in by Head of Film Exhibition and Festival Programming Anna Feder, who had been with the college for 17 years.
Notably, after every screening, students and locals could participate in an extended conversation with a guest. Through the years, Bright Lights has hosted over 200 directors, producers, actors, and editors—not counting the various professors and faculty members who helped moderate. Therefore, the program fulfilled an academic function as screenings were often woven into course curriculums.
Before the start of the Fall 2024 semester, Emerson announced they were ending the Bright Lights program alongside 10 staff layoffs, which included Feder. These were cited as budget cuts for the school to focus on its “core academic mission.”
“I was running a very popular program that was very inexpensive, and that was a real point of pride for the institution,” Feder said in an interview with The Beacon. “Faculty got to screen their work, students got to hear from filmmakers, and I was an ambassador to alumni who had no connection to the college. To make that cut without understanding what they’re cutting is a real disservice to the community.”
The groundwork laid by Feder was a byproduct of prior connections in the local film scene—she previously served as a programmer for Boston Underground Film Festival and Wicked Queer. She also often collaborated with alumni for screenings.
“Sometimes I would find them in the wild, sometimes they would come to me—many of them had little to no contact with the college since graduating,” Feder said. “One of my favorite discoveries was Amanda Kramer’s ‘Please Baby Please,’ which I caught going to Fantasia two years ago. I had no idea she was an alum.”
Emerson rescheduled “Israelism,” initially programmed for the Fall 2023 season, in response to the Oct. 7 attacks. They cited the need to “hold space for internal conversation and dialogue before hosting a public screening,” according to an Emerson Today article published last year.
“I was told there were security concerns,” Feder said. “Both directors are Jewish, I’m Jewish, and I reached out to Julie Avis Rogers, the director of spiritual life, as well as Jewish faculty. I had a lot of care put into this program.”
“Israelism” is directed by Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen, and is based on their own experiences interrogating the way American Jewish and Zionist identities have been merged since their youths. The film was ultimately moved to the spring season, with both directors present for a post-screening discussion.
On the day of the screening, the venue was at maximum capacity. They were forced to turn away 50 to 60 students, who then rented the film to screen separately in a classroom. Feder sent them a Zoom link after so they wouldn’t miss out on the discussion.
“It was the most successful screening I’d ever run at the school,” Feder said.
In addition to running Bright Lights, Feder also created and taught a Contemporary Film Programming and Exhibition course. It was the only course at Emerson—and one of few in the country—where students could specifically learn film curation.
Wesley Emblidge ‘17, one of her students, loved the class so much it became his career path: he has volunteered for IFFBoston and worked for the Brattle and the Coolidge Corner Theatre. Today he’s the U.S. releases marketing manager for Mubi, a film distribution company. Feder’s course helped him enter a side of the film world he wouldn’t otherwise have been exposed to.
“There’s no traditional path for working in distribution or for being a festival programmer,” Emblidge said. “It’s a big hole in the education programs of a lot of film schools that Anna was making a concerted effort to fill, both with the series and especially with the class.”
Through the class, Emblidge became involved with Bright Lights, working alongside Feder. He helped with the marketing for the program, which included connecting with various student groups on campus as well as promoting to locals who make up Boston’s filmgoing scene.
“The people who live and work in Boston are not always huge fans of the colleges because of the way students can treat the city sometimes,” Emblidge said. “I think Bright Lights being open to the wider community is very valuable for giving Emerson a presence that isn’t antagonistic, that isn’t just throwing a bunch of drunk people into the streets.”
Bright Lights was only ever a small operation—besides Feder, the team consisted of a projectionist and a rotating roster of student assistant facilitators—but Emerson’s decision to cut the program is felt broadly: by students, professors, local filmgoers, and film curators across the country.
“I was the Kermit of the program,” Feder said. “But all these Muppets were involved, and they’re a bit disgruntled—the Muppet Show was taken off the air and they weren’t consulted.”
CineFest Latino and Bright Lights had planned a co-presentation of “Frida,” a hybrid animation documentary about Frida Kahlo, for September with director Carla Guitirrez invited for a Q&A. The event was up in the air after Bright Lights’ cancellation was announced, but the Department of Visual and Media Arts along with ArtsEmerson advocated for the screening to continue.
“It’s sad to see because we’re losing these series that present amazing films to the public,” CineFest Latino founder and director Sabrina Aviles said. “But there are so many other film festivals that rely on that screening room and love to showcase films that build community and spark conversation. This legacy of curation and amplifying the independent voice continues to exist, especially through other film festivals here in Boston.”
Bright Lights played a pivotal role in bridging gaps: it brought local filmgoers into the Emerson community, it was a gateway for students into other film festivals, and it allowed for open dialogue between students, filmmakers, and professors.
As of Sept. 18, Bright Lights’ social media pages, including its Instagram, Facebook, and website, have been taken down. Only its YouTube channel, which contains the recordings of many post-screening discussions, remains.
“It’s bizarre to me that the institution is removing information from the public sphere,” Feder said. “I am archiving the series with the college, but it’ll live in the library somewhere, inaccessible to most people.”
Making films and film discourse openly accessible has always been part of Bright Lights’ guiding vision. Entry was free for all students, and Feder prides herself on having made sure films were always screened with closed captions.
“She’s been an amazing advocate for accessibility,” ArtsEmerson Creative Producer Susan Chinsen said. “Not only for disabilities, but recognizing the real barriers within the film industry and using the resources she has to give space to storytellers that are lesser-known—queer filmmakers, female filmmakers, people of color.”
ArtsEmerson had long been a collaborator of Bright Lights—the programs shared a mission of highlighting diverse perspectives and encouraging conversation about art. Films with difficult subjects like “Real Boy,” which observes the relationship between a mother and her trans son, and “Bulletproof,” a documentary about gun safety measures in schools, were given a space to be watched and discussed thoughtfully.
For the Fall 2024 program, Feder had wanted to screen Brett Story and Stephen Maing’s “Union,” a documentary that follows the Amazon Labor Union from its creation to its eventual ratification. She was planning a discussion with representatives from on-campus unions, including the Staff Union, the Students’ Union, UNITE HERE, which represents the dining hall staff, and 32BJ SEIU, which represents the security staff.
Bright Lights may be out for now, but community support remains steadfast—as of Sept. 18, the Bring Back Bright Lights petition has sent over 3,000 letters. In the meanwhile, there are plenty of local festivals that have been upholding the same values of encouraging diversity and discourse: CineFest Latino, Boston Asian American Film Festival, Boston Palestine Film Festival, and Wicked Queer, among many others that have collaborated with the program.
“I kept finding ways to keep it going with very little money because it was a labor of love,” Feder said. “I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more to do with my life than find all these amazing films and build an audience and have conversations that we all need to be having right now.”
