Clark Art Presents Outdoor Film Series

11:48AM / Sunday, August 03, 2025Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — In celebration of "A Room of Her Own: Women Artist-Activists in Britain, 1875–1945," the Clark Art Institute presents a selection of films celebrating women artists working in contemporary cinema.

The three-part outdoor film series is held on Wednesdays in August. All films are free and screened outdoors at dusk on the Clark's Reflecting Pool lawn.

Films in this series include:

LADY BIRD

August 6, 8:10 pm

Lady Bird (2017), directed by Greta Gerwig, stars Saoirse Ronan as a headstrong teenager navigating her senior year of high school in Sacramento. A semiautobiographical coming-of-age story, the film captures the push and pull between ambition and home, independence and family. Gerwig's directional debut was praised for its writing, emotional honesty, and personal yet universal themes. (Run time: 1 hour, 34 minutes)

SHREK

August 13, 8:10 pm

Directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, Shrek (2001) is a subversive take on a classic fairy tale, as the film follows an ogre, a talkative donkey, and a spirited princess who challenge storybook conventions. Jenson, one of the first women to co-direct a major animated feature, shaped the film's sharp humor and heartfelt core. A critical and commercial success, Shrek won the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. (Run time: 1 hour, 30 minutes)

TURNING RED

August 27, 7:45 pm

This coming-of-age story follows Mei, a confident yet conflicted teenager who transforms into a giant red panda when she experiences strong emotions. Incorporating relatable family dynamics with a playful take on adolescence, Turning Red (2022) is the first Pixar feature solely directed by a woman, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Domee Shi. (Run time: 1 hour, 40 minutes)

Bring a picnic and your own seating. Inclement weather moves events to the Manton Research Center auditorium. For accessibility questions, call 413 458 0524. For more information, visit clarkart.edu/events.

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Discrimination Against Muslim Americans Persists 25 Years After 9/11

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
07:00AM / Saturday, September 12, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Dozens of Muslim Americans were among people killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Untold numbers of Muslim Americans have suffered countless acts of discrimination in their aftermath.

"Of course, you'll find several accounts of Muslims from all over the U.S. describing how they went from the unknown kids in the school to being stereotyped or ridiculed for their Muslim names," Sidra Mahmood recalled recently. "However, many Americans forget that the victims of 9/11 were also Muslim Americans.

"I can't forget the time when a classmate broke down in sobs when 9/11 came up in our classroom at the Islamic seminary I went to in Texas, because her father's best friend who was like an uncle to her, died on 9/11."

Today, Mahmood is a chaplain at Williams College. In 2001, she was growing up in Karachi, Pakistan, when terrorists forced two passenger jets into the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan and another plane into the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. A third plane, which terrorists hoped to crash into a D.C. landmark, was brought down in western Pennsylvania after passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers.

The attacks, which ultimately claimed 2,976 lives, horrified people around the world, including in Mahmood's native land.

"I remember being aghast like anyone who witnessed the fall of the Twin Towers in real time," she said. "However, even as a child, fear gripped me about the possibility of war, especially once we learned that Afghanistan, right adjacent to Pakistan, would be attacked by the U.S. My mother had told me about the 1971 war between India and Pakistan when she remembered hiding in the dark after bomb sirens would go off in Punjab after intentional blackouts.

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