History of the Institute

In the summer of 2003, Laurel Dagnon, Alison McNeal, and John Nichols worked to establish the Harry M. Warner Film Institute.  It was formed for a variety of reasons, but primarily because nearby New Castle, PA is the home of the first Warner Brothers theater in the nation.  The historic theater originally opened back in 1907, and the site of that Warner Brothers theater is currently being restored.  The theater is slated to re-open in the spring of 2005 with three theaters inside. 

Our first task in establishing the institute was to contact Cass Warner, Harry Warner’s granddaughter, with the idea and the request to use the Warner Bros name for our Film Institute.  When AOL-Time Warner proved reluctant to grant us that favor, Cass Warner rescued our idea with the offer to use solely her grandfather’s name.  Thus the name of our Institute became the Harry M. Warner Film Institute.  For now, we are going to run the Institute as a Non-profit organization under the umbrella of the Slippery Rock University Foundation, which allows for contributions made to the Harry M. Warner Film Institute to help in the funding of events.

A group of Slippery Rock University professors and staff  began meeting in the Fall semester of 2003.  By the Spring of 2004, we had applied for a TLTR grant for state of the art Video equipment and a PA-Humanities Grant. Both grants were written to include the participation of the Lawrence County Historical Society, undergraduate students at Slippery Rock University, and professors from different disciplines with the intent to “Remember the Good Times in New Castle, PA 1900-1960.”  Approximately, $6,700 in funds were awarded.  During the summer of 2004, Robert Presnar, Director of the Lawrence County Historical Society, interviewed and filmed ten Lawrence County residents.  The raw tapes are currently on SRU's campus for final editing and mixing.

In the Spring of 2004 Kaleidoscope helped to launch the Harry M. Warner Film Institute by sponsoring Stephen Simon’s visit to campus.  He is a film producer of such works as Somewhere in Time and What Dreams May Come.  His current enterprise, Spiritual Cinema Circles, has recently been acknowledged by Newsweek.

In the Spring of 2005, the Harry M. Warner Film Institute held its first Film Festival in conjunction with Kaleidoscope on April 21 and 22, followed by a lavish awards ceremony and a celebration in New Castle.  The events received a turnout of about 400 people!