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Webutuck students’ films hit the silver screen at filmmaking workshop
Aly Morrissey
Mar 18, 2026
Benjamin Sprague, left, Nolan Howard, center, and Holden Slater conduct a Q&A with community members that came to watch their short documentary films after a filmmaking workshop at the Millerton Moviehouse on Thursday, March 12.
Photo by Aly Morrissey
MILLERTON — Students from the Webutuck Central School District screened their five-minute documentaries at The Moviehouse Thursday, March12, showing off their newly acquired skills to an audience of friends, family and community members.
The films — written, directed, shot and edited by the students themselves with guidance from local filmmakers — were the culmination of a two-day student filmmaking bootcamp held earlier this month.
Nolan Howard, Benjamin Sprague and Holden Slater created short documentaries featuring two well-known Main Street businesses, Candy-O’s and Oblong Books, after learning filmmaking fundamentals and conducting interviews with the business owners.
The students worked over the course of a Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., an impressively short amount of time to write, shoot, edit and produce a complete five-minute documentary.
Local filmmakers Alix Diaconis — a freelance video editor, videographer and photographer based in Millerton — and Brian Gersten, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and editor, guided the students through the filmmaking process.
“We had a clear game plan,” she said, adding that students and faculty spent around an hour on pre-production, then an hour shooting. “Everything was mapped out ahead of time.”
Diaconis said she was largely hands off with her student.
“He edited the entire film himself.”
Jeremy Boviard, the general manager of The Moviehouse, put into context how impressive the student work was.
“What these students accomplished is really difficult, especially considering they did it in just a handful of hours,” Boviard said. “It speaks not only to their filmmaking potential, but also to the value of putting in the hard work and seeing the rewards of it.”
Ninth grader Nolan Howard, who loved his previous filmmaking bootcamp so much that he returned again, said he was inspired by the direction to create real stories people can relate to. Taking the storytelling element to heart, he decided to infuse a Jurassic Park theme into his documentary.
“It inspired me to create a very interesting storyline from an actual movie and put it into a documentary,” Nolan said.
The students edited on iPads using iMovie.
“It showed me how to be a better filmmaker and learn through trials and tribulations,” he added.
Darrin Butland, who teaches arts and media in Webutuck’s EBIS, said he announces the opportunity to students each year.
“Over the years, quite a few students have stepped up, which is great,” Butland said. “Hopefully this will give our students a spark — that creativity piece — and future projects will come from it.”
Butland said it was a gratifying experience as a teacher.
“Nolan has really come out of his shell over the past two years,” he said. “Seeing him speak tonight was huge for him. The other boys were the same way. Watching that kind of confidence grow through this program means everything.”
Aaron Howard, father of student filmmaker Nolan Howard, said he didn’t get a sneak peek of his son’s film, but he knew it was a five-minute documentary about Oblong Books.
“I thought the film was great,” Howard said. “I loved that Nolan put his own creativity and sense of humor into it, but he still covered the important details of the business.”
Howard said he believes the offering at The Moviehouse is a great opportunity for local students.
“To really open up students’ eyes to what it takes and to gain an appreciation for the entertainment industry — and how much time it takes to make a film — is really excellent,” he said.
Boviard said the event was part of The Moviehouse’s ongoing efforts to expand educational community programming.
“Having students involved in this kind of environment is really exciting,” Boviard said. He added that he enjoyed hearing a Webutuck teacher comment during the Q&A session about the students’ public speaking and her excitement to bring that confidence back into the classroom.
“It’s a great benefit because public speaking is something you might not immediately associate with making a film, but it’s such an important skill,” he said.
Diaconis’ work includes HBO and Magnolia Network’s Beach Cottage Chronicles, projects for ESPN and Vox Media, and award-winning films including the Brooklyn Film Festival Audience Award-winning Are You Glad I’m Here.
Gersten’s work has screened at major festivals and appears on platforms including Netflix, HBO, PBS, Amazon Prime, and Peacock. His editing credits include the acclaimed documentary Searching for Mr. Rugoff and Enter the Slipstream.
“I never had an opportunity like this growing up,” Gersten said. “It’s pretty rare for an area like this to offer something like this, especially a free program for middle schoolers. It’s amazing that the Moviehouse is providing this opportunity, and we’re hoping to spread the word.”
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Planning Board postpones vote on Cascade Creek environmental review
Leila Hawken
Mar 18, 2026
Amenia Town Hall on Route 22.
Photo by Nathan Miller
AMENIA — Planning Board members postponed a vote that could require developers of the proposed workforce housing subdivision on Route 22 to undergo a full environmental impact review.
Board members convened at Town Hall on Wednesday, March 11, following a visit to the 18-acre grassy lot nestled in the corner of Cascade Road and Route 22/Route 44 that developer Hudson River Housing plans to construct 28 homes on. The board identified the remaining few issues to be addressed by developers of the Cascade Creek subdivision.
Once those concerns are satisfied, the conservation analysis phase will be completed, allowing the developer to advance to the next phase of presenting site plan drawings for review. Board members sought more water capacity for firefighting and a homebuyer selection system that could prioritize locals. Other concerns over home design and vegetation would be addressed during site plan review, the project’s engineers said.
Because the concerns seem close to being addressed, the Planning Board voted unanimously to table discussion of their resolution for a positive declaration in connection to New York’s State Environmental Quality Review Act environmental impact analysis. The positive declaration would have required a full impact analysis study, a process that could delay approval up to an additional year.
Webutuck School District Superintendent Raymond Castellani appeared at the meeting to respond to the Planning Board’s interest in measuring the potential impact of the development on the school district’s enrollment.
“The word ‘impact’ is important,” Castellani said. “We could ‘accommodate’ the students generated by the 28 planned homes.” He noted that the present total school enrollment of 630 has been holding steady over the past few years.
“We could accommodate, but there could be an impact if the new students require services,” Castellani said, noting that about 30% of current students need some kind of services that can include transportation and involve additional cost.
“We welcome all kids,” Castellani emphasized. While the additional students can be accommodated, the budget impact is unknown.
The developer detailed changes incorporated into the plans, including enhanced landscape design, adding one tree to each house lot, along with supplemental evergreen plantings to provide vegetative screening.
Fire suppression continued to be of deep concern for Planning Board chairman Robert Boyles, debating adequate supply with the developers who offered two buried 20,000 gallon fiberglass tanks to total 40,000 gallons of firefighting capacity.
“We asked for 180,000 gallons,” Boyles countered. Speaking on behalf of the fire department, Boyles agreed to work with the developers and the department to arrive at an agreeable amount.
“They’ve gone above and beyond to agree to use fire-retardant building materials,” Boyles conceded.
Boyles asked about maintenance of the water supply systems. Project Engineer Richard Rennia responded that the Homeowners Association would be responsible, along with a professional water operator.
Water availability came under discussion. Planning board engineer John Andrews noted that health authorities have established a projection of 110 gallons of usage per bedroom.
“You will get a hard look at it during the site plan approval process,” Rennia assured the board.
Quoting the town’s Comprehensive Plan of Development, Planning Board member Ken Topolsky saw potential for a point system that could favor the selection of local homebuyers who contribute to the community in various ways, also suggesting a greater variety of home model styles to enhance the visuals.
Mary Linge, Hudson River Housing’s Director of Real Estate Development, indicated that her office would prepare a point system proposal to be submitted to the state Fair Housing officials.
Siland recreational facility
A public hearing on Siland’s request for a site plan change to revise parking configurations and adjust terrain for drainage drew no public comment. Siland Consultant Patrick O’Leary reported that the request no longer suggests lighting. At the Feb. 25 Planning Board meeting O’Leary had floated an idea to include lighting for after-dark platform tennis at the recreational facility.
New Meeting Time
By unanimous agreement, the Planning Board set its 2026 meeting start time one hour earlier. Accordingly, the next meeting on Wednesday, March 25, will begin at 6 p.m.
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Trailblazing divorce attorney Harriet Newman Cohen to speak at Norfolk Library
Jennifer Almquist
Mar 18, 2026
Harriet Newman Cohen
Provided
Harriet Newman Cohen weathered many storms in her five-decade-long journey to become one of the nation’s most celebrated divorce attorneys. Voted one of the top 100 attorneys in New York for many years, Cohen served as president of the New York Women’s Bar Association and has been a champion of divorce reform. She and her co-author, journalist David Feinberg, will give a book talk about her memoir, “Passion and Power: A Life in Three Worlds,” at the Norfolk Library on Sunday, March 22 at 2 p.m.
What began as a personal record of her life, intended for her family, grew into a memoir that journalist Carl Bernstein describes in his endorsement as “wise and riveting.” Born in 1932 in Providence, Rhode Island, to parents who immigrated in 1920 from Ukraine and Poland, Cohen traces the arc of her life and the challenges she faced entering a legal profession that was overwhelmingly male at the time, leading to her success as a maverick divorce attorney fighting for women’s rights and equity in the law. She received her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Brooklyn Law School in 1974, one year after Roe v. Wade was decided. She is a founding partner of Cohen Stine Kapoor LLP in New York City, a family and matrimonial law firm she formed in 2021, at age 88, with her daughter Martha Cohen Stine and Ankit Kapoor.
Provided
Cohen writes fearlessly, with a good dose of wry humor, about her own struggles balancing marriage and divorce, raising four daughters, entering Brooklyn Law School in 1971 at age 38, and her ensuing legal career. According to Bernstein, “Passion and Power” is as much about the reshaping of American cultural norms as it is about one remarkable woman’s role at the forefront of legal and social transformation.
Cohen’s work in the legal profession has been pivotal to social change. A 2021 HBO documentary, “Nuclear Family,” directed by Ry Russo-Young, chronicles the landmark custody struggle of Russo-Young’s parents, a queer couple who hired Cohen as their lawyer.
Cohen is an honest storyteller, unflinching in admitting her mistakes and rightly proud of her accomplishments. Her story ranges from tales of her father’s fortune made producing the Hula-Hoop to her memory of schoolmate Kiki Bader — Ruth Bader Ginsburg — as a cheerleader waving pom-poms in Brooklyn. She also writes of her deep love of family, the stultifying suburban life of her first marriage, mentorship by legal icon Louis Nizer and riding the wave of social revolution that buoyed her career.
Norfolk author Gillian Linden writes of her step-grandmother, “Harriet Newman Cohen is a funny, edifying guide — precise, curious, warm. Entirely unsentimental. Marriage and its many paths is rich territory. This book is filled with the strange, glamorous, desperate and sadistic characters you hope to meet in the very best novels.”
For details, visit norfolklibrary.org
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Roots rhythms at the NorthEast-Millerton Library
Patrick L. Sullivan
Mar 18, 2026
Photo by Patrick L. Sullivan
Local roots music band Bog Hollow performs at the NorthEast-Millerton Library Annex on Saturday, March 14. Members of the band are, left to right, Ambrose Verdibello, Tom White, Dave Paton, Mike Prentice, Michael Grey. The group of long-time friends formed the group and began performing across the tri-state area in 2021.
Amenia Town Board approves 470-acre Wassaic trails project
Leila Hawken
Mar 18, 2026
Amenia Town Hall on Route 22.
Photo by Nathan Miller
AMENIA — Town Board members gave unanimous approval to a trail project in Wassaic that would add 12 miles of hiking and biking trails across 470 acres of forested land.
Following months of consideration and approvals obtained from local and county officials, the Northern Red Oak Trail project won unanimous approval for a special permit from the Town Board at its meeting on Monday, March 9.
The meeting had been rescheduled from the Town Board’s regular meeting date of Thursday, March 5, due to inclement weather.
First proposed in July 2025, the recreational trail project will include about 470 acres along Old Route 22 to create 12 miles of hiking and biking trails traversing three contiguous parcels of land. Trails will be three feet in width with minimal impact to the land. Boardwalks will be installed only where necessary. A gravel parking area is planned to accommodate 12 to 15 cars.
A public hearing on the project was held on Thursday, Feb. 19, when a few residents voiced concerns over visual impact amid generally positive feedback.
The project is supported by Hollyhock Foundation, a New York City organization that focuses in part on environmental solutions to combat greenhouse gases. The nonprofit entity guiding the project is Northern Red Oak, LLC.
Report on AI
Exploring the use of artificial intelligence as an assist with town business, the Town Board heard a report from technician Matthew Hamm who presented aspects of AI that can streamline workflow, save time and reduce paperwork for staff.
The Town Hall uses Microsoft 365 systems, making Co-Pilot the logical AI system to explore. Hamm said that the Co-Pilot program is easy to navigate.
“It’s a digital multi-tool,” Hamm said, noting that AI can help with grant writing and researching available grants the town could apply for. Budget analysis is another strength of the systems. AI can also aid in communication, adept at language translation and simplification of legal terms, Hamm explained. He suggested starting small, as with a single grant.
“AI is not a shortcut,” Hamm cautioned, “It’s important to know exactly what you’re asking. As with any tool, it’s only useful if you use it correctly.”
Recreation funding
Adequate funding for town recreation programs was of concern to Councilmember Nicole Ahearn who reminded the Town Board of the history of using Cell Tower revenue to support the Recreation Commission’s programs.
Ahearn recalled that when the Recreation Commission was formed in 2005, the town passed a resolution stating that the Cell Tower Fund would be used for Recreation. But in 2011, the policy changed so that only $1,200 would be given to Recreation with the remainder to be placed into the General Fund.
The Recreation Commission is not being awarded grant funding, Ahearn noted, although she acknowledged that the town’s operating budget is largely supported only by tax revenue.
Councilmember Vicki Doyle suggested that recreation funding be discussed when budget proposals are being developed and that the town could decide on an amount for capital funding to assist the Recreation Commission’s planning.
“There should be a capital reserve fund for recreation, but it should be a thoughtful process,” Doyle said.
Recreation Commission chairman Judy Moran noted that her department had asked for funding to hire the services of a grant writer.
Moran noted that for the current year’s budget, recreation was asked to cut its budget, and the budget was cut as much as possible.
“We cut the budget,” she said. “But it’s hard to constantly beg.”
Town Board vacancy
Although a resolution to fill the vacant seat on the Town Board had been prepared to be considered at the meeting, the item was withdrawn from the agenda in the opening minutes of the meeting at Doyle’s suggestion. The vote to withdraw the resolution was unanimous. No reason was offered for the action. The vacancy that will expire in December 2027 occurred when Town Board member Rosanna Hamm won election in 2025 to serve as Town Supervisor.
During public comment, resident Jim Wright spoke in support of naming Charlie Miller to fill the vacant seat, citing Miller’s years of town service and skill at securing grants to fund capital projects. Resident Judy Moran spoke briefly to oppose the resolution that would have filled the seat.
The Town Board has been operating as a four-member board, rather than five, since the death of councilmember Paul Winters in early 2025.
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“Once and Again”
Millerton News
Mar 18, 2026
Natalia Zukerman
Rebecca Serle (right) and novelist Jessica Anya Blau shared laughs and literary secrets during a lively conversation about Serle’s new novel “Once and Again” at the The White Hart Inn in Salisbury on Wednesday, March 11. Serle is the bestselling author of “In Five Years,” “One Italian Summer” and several other novels beloved for their emotional twists and reflections on fate and second chances. The talk was part of the White Hart Speaker Series presented with Oblong Books and the Scoville Memorial Library.
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