John P. Harris Society

The John P. Harris Society

The John P. Harris Society is Point Park University's cinema club, open to all Point Park students that have a passion for film and drive to further and discuss the art.

The Society publishes "Cinema-Stylo," a student-written journal of film criticism, observation, discussion, and review in the vein of "Cahiers du Cinema," the highly influential publication that kick-started the French New Wave of film.

The John P. Harris society also organizes weekly screenings as well as student events to network filmmakers to actors and public events with guest speakers from within the film industry. These are often offered in tandem with supplemental screenings.

The John P. Harris society is named in tribute to the Hon. John P. Harris (1871 - 1929), a figure of Pittsburgh and film history. Harris was a Pittsburgher and member of the Pennsylvania State Senate who coined the name "Nickelodeon" when he opened his small storefront movie theater under that name on Smithfield Street in June of 1905. Harris' was one of the first theaters in the world to specialize in presenting movies. Harris found such great success with the operation that his concept of a five-cent theater running movies continuously was soon imitated by hundreds of ambitious entrepreneurs (as was the name of the theater itself).