A History of the Dartmouth Film Society

A Brief History of the Dartmouth Film Society

Formally launched in 1949 (with W.C. Fields’ Million Dollar Legs), the Dartmouth Film Society was the first student organization in the United States to bring to a college campus a program of films which were not likely to be shown at local theaters, in classrooms, by clubs, or elsewhere. This was a time before art houses, film studies departments, or film schools. One of the oldest college-run film societies in the country, the DFS started screening films at Dartmouth in 16mm seventy-five years ago in North Fairbanks. At the time, film studies was part of the Department of Theater.

In 1962, the Hopkins Center for the Arts was dedicated and opened to Dartmouth students, faculty, and the public. From the outset, Spaulding Auditorium had a projection booth—it was one of the first projection booths in an arts center in a concert hall in the country. It was quickly agreed that Spaulding was an awesome venue in which to watch films. The large auditorium’s grand stage and plentiful seating lent the movies which screened there a grandiosity that typical movie theaters, including the Nugget in downtown Hanover, simply could not (and cannot) replicate. 

Bill Pence and Dartmouth

Dartmouth Director of Film Emeritus Bill Pence (1940-2022) was one of the pioneers of repertory cinema. Pence was passionate about curating and screening archival cinema prints, and he did so throughout his life. In the 1950s, at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University) he joined and then ran the student film society, through which he presented regular, themed film programs to students. 

After graduating, Pence became a vice president at Janus Films, leading the theatrical and educational division. At Janus, he championed the concept of “films in repertory,” making “Janus Film Festivals” a staple at colleges and big-city art theaters in the early 1960s and ’70s. He pioneered the distribution of specialized and foreign films in non-metropolitan college towns through his own company, Film Arts Enterprises. He was also an early champion of the restoration of prints, and he worked tirelessly for the preservation and exhibition of films around the world.

Pence co-founded the Telluride Film Festival in 1974 and, for over thirty years, oversaw the growth of the Festival, helping to nurture its reputation as one of the leading international film festivals.

In 1983, Dartmouth hired Pence as the first Director of Film at the Hopkins Center for the Arts. He also led the Dartmouth Film Society and developed a program through which Dartmouth students could become involved with the Telluride Film Festival. Until Pence’s retirement in 2016, almost all films that screened in Hanover passed through his hands—he programmed screenings on Dartmouth’s screens and at the Nugget.

Telluride at Dartmouth

As a founder of the Telluride Film Festival, Pence was able to establish Telluride at Dartmouth, a unique partnership between the Festival and the Hopkins Center. For decades, under Bill’s guidance, Dartmouth students assisted in the curation of Telluride’s short film program and joined the Festival’s Student Symposium. Today, there is a small “Dartmouth mafia” among the loyal ranks of Festival staff and longtime attendees, who are united by Bill Pence’s legacy and their tenure at the Dartmouth Film Society.

In Hanover, Telluride at Dartmouth is a special annual program that takes place in September at the beginning of every fall term. Telluride at Dartmouth typically brings six films from the Telluride Film Festival to the Hopkins Center. These are often exciting new titles—future Oscar nominees and winners—that screen first at Telluride, perhaps other festivals, and at Dartmouth before they enter wide release to the general public months later.

I attended the Telluride Student Symposium in Telluride, Colorado this year, where I had the privilege of experiencing the Festival’s fiftieth anniversary. It was an incredible experience. The Festival routinely screens some of the best upcoming films, focusing on the quality of the films and the love of filmmaking rather than the celebrity, pomp, and circumstance that can overtake other festivals. Renowned actors and directors such as Ken Burns, Werner Herzog, Ethan Hawke, and Emma Stone were all present at this year’s Festival, and they were treated like normal people! No one asked them for photos; there were no paparazzi at Telluride. The Festival’s atmosphere was easygoing—it was commonplace to strike up conversations with festivalgoers in queues and in theaters while waiting for films to start. Dartmouth’s influence on the Telluride Festival is ongoing: Two of the Festival’s ten theaters are managed by Dartmouth graduates, and many more help run the Festival, including Sydney Stowe and Johanna Evans, respectively the director and manager of film programming at the Hopkins Center.

The Dartmouth Film Society Today

Today, the Dartmouth Film Society is a robust student organization with involvement in what we call “Hop Film.” The DFS meets weekly on Tuesday evenings to discuss, debrief, and debate the three or four Hopkins Center films that screen each week. The Film Society also works with the Hopkins Center’s film staff to curate the themed screening series each term. This fall, the “Primal Fear” series included films such as Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. In honor of Bill Pence, the Hop is also screening the uncut King Kong in 35mm (for further reading see “Bill Pence (1940-2002)” -Ed.).

Other activities of the Film Society include writing film notes that accompany each film in the term’s screening series. The DFS also interfaces directly with visiting filmmakers and Dartmouth alumni in the film industry through meet-and-greets and Q&As. Also exciting are free advance screenings at the Hopkins Center. This term, the Hop is screening Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s (Promising Young Woman) sophomore feature, starring Barry Keoghan and Rosamund Pike. In past terms, advance screenings have included films such as Steven Spielberg’s The Fablemans.

Looking forward, this academic year’s upcoming Hop Film programming includes: a “Complicated Romance” series in the winter term; Oscar-nominated films that screen every winter term ahead of the Academy Awards; and a Studio Ghibli & Hayao Miyazaki screening series in the spring.

Caroline Wong is the student director of the Dartmouth Film Society for this academic year.