Dear Utah Film Center community,
Utah Film Center was founded on the principle that sharing our stories fosters connection, deepens understanding, and inspires collaboration for the common good. Public media plays a vital role in this mission—delivering educational programming, impactful local stories, news coverage, and emergency communications to more than 99% of Americans every day.
Our partnerships with Utah’s public media organizations like PBS Utah, KUER, and Utah Education Network (UEN) help bring these values to life across the state. Together, we’ve created impactful opportunities for communities, including in rural and under-resourced areas, to engage with the power of storytelling through film.
Highlights of our collaborations with Utah’s public media organizations include:
- Rural Utah Tours with Utah Education Network (UEN) that expand access to media arts education, especially to some of the state’s most rural schools—from one-room schoolhouses in Boulder to small classrooms in Flaming Gorge.
- Our partnership with UEN and PBS Utah to bring digital media initiatives and filmmaking opportunities to students across the state, with a shared goal that students in every corner of Utah have access to the inspiring, educational opportunities provided by public media. Over 20% of Utah’s schools are rural and some of the smallest have a total district population of less than 1,000 students. Many are also under-resourced: sharing staff, technology and expertise, even when separated at great distances.
- PBS Utah’s Reading Marathon Passport Program, where students across the state receive free or low-cost access to our annual Tumbleweeds Film Festival for Kids. At the festival, students discover how film can be a tool for creative expression and learn to interpret key elements like genre, setting, and tone.
- In-classroom enrichment, integrating PBS Utah’s high-quality media and curriculum into our classroom workshops to enrich lessons and offer students access to resources that are aligned with state standards.
- Our Through The Lens film series, presented in partnership with KUER/RadioWest, uses on-air programming to amplify the ideas and conversations sparked by Utah Film Center film screenings. Each jointly selected film is chosen with a shared goal in mind: to foster curiosity, conversation, and connection between the filmmakers and Utah audiences. The series reaches more than 90,000 Utahns per episode, extending access to meaningful arts experiences across the state.
- Our collaboration with UEN has opened doors for students to consider filmmaking and broadcasting as viable career paths by connecting students to industry experts and exposing them to a variety of professional industries through hands-on activities.
While our in-person events may reach hundreds or thousands, our partnerships with public media organizations extend that impact to hundreds of thousands—helping us share stories, ideas, and conversations with communities across the state. Thanks to them, our programs reach nearly one million Utahns each year.
These programs don’t just build media literacy and spark curiosity; they also help students and audiences recognize the importance of finding trusted and truthful resources in today’s world.
If you believe in the value that public media programming brings to communities and households across Utah and the nation, we encourage you to join the Protect My Public Media Coalition or contact your federal representatives. You can find links to both below:
https://protectmypublicmedia.org/coalition
https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
Thank you for being part of our community and for helping us amplify the power of public media and film.
