• Brief History   Sherry Miller Hocking 1999
• Activities Ann Curran, CNYPG Coordinator, and Jane Greenberg, past CNYPG Coordinator, 1998-2000

Brief History
The Central New York Programmers Group is an alliance of upstate college and media center programmers in the Central New York region. The group has met since 1986 to plan tours of video and filmmakers. CNYPG is sponsored by Cornell Cinema and the New York State Council on the Arts. The mission is to develop circuits for independent film and video makers to tour Upstate New York venues. John Knecht, Professor at Colgate University, conceived the program.

John Efroymson became the Coordinator in January 1988 with support from the New York State Council on the Arts. The office was initially housed at Ithaca College. Efroymson was also interested in helping to get Media Ithaca off the ground; he helped with the formation of a board, which included representatives of Ithaca College and Cornell University.

Member organizations include Hallwalls, CEPA Gallery, Colgate University, Syracuse University, Binghamton University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Visual Studies Workshop, Squeaky Wheel and many others.

While initially focused on filmmakers, CNYPG broadened its scope to include media.

Other coordinators have included Bob Harris, Mary Fessenden, Jane Greenberg, Graham Leggat, Rii Kanzaki, Ann Curran
 

Activities
The Central New York Programmers' Group was formed in the late 1980s as a professional network for programmers and teachers of film and video from colleges, media arts centers, libraries, museums and community-based facilities in the upstate region, principally Central and Western New York State.

The goal of CNYPG was to provide a formal, centralized forum for the informal exchange of information that regularly goes on between programmers, exhibitors, teachers and media arts producers in a given city or area and to do this on a large scale.

Programmers involved in CNYPG are able to share a wealth of information and resources, setting the stage for joint programming possibilities. In so doing they help strengthen one another and foster a sense of regional autonomy and identity. This foundation of support and information sharing enables CNYPG to attract acclaimed independent and alternative film-and videomakers to tour the region in person which in turn energizes the various arts communities in the region.

CNYPG is a joint program of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and Cornell Cinema in Ithaca where the co-ordinator is usually based. Three to four tours of independent media artists are co-ordinated each year in the spring and fall. Tour guests are suggested by CNYPG members and selected through a voting process. Touring artists have presented screenings, lectured in classrooms, held workshops and/or created media art works.

Recent guest include a range of American and foreign artists:
Craig Baldwin (2000), Ulrike Koch (1999) Sadie Bening (1998) Kirby Dick (1998) Alan Berliner (1997). Previous year guests have included: Daniel Reeves, Pratibha Parmar, Ngozi Onwurah, DA Pennebaker, Greta Snider, Dusan Makaveyev.