Cinema is modern culture's primary art form.
Apollo Outreach is built on a deep partnership with the Cinema Studies Program at Oberlin College. Together, we bring the power of moving images into classrooms and communities across Lorain County.
Developed in 2002, Oberlin's Cinema Studies Program combines critical study, hands-on filmmaking, and community service. This distinctive approach sends student mentors into local schools to teach media as a modern art form — equipping young people not just to watch films, but to create them.
Partnerships sit at the heart of how Apollo Outreach turns classroom ideas into real community impact. Working closely with neighboring programs, the initiative connects students, faculty, and local volunteers around shared goals of education, creativity, and civic growth. By pooling resources and perspectives, the collaboration strengthens each partner's ability to serve young people across Lorain County, weaving together academic study, hands-on practice, and neighborhood engagement in a single, sustained effort that values every contributor's voice and lived experience.
The collaboration with Oberlin College's Cinema Studies Program represents one of the most visible expressions of this approach. Cinema is widely recognized as a defining art form of modern life, shaping how communities tell their stories and interpret the world around them. Through this long-standing relationship, student mentors step into local schools to guide younger learners in critical viewing, thoughtful discussion, and the basics of filmmaking, helping bridge the energy of a college environment with the rhythm of nearby neighborhoods.
Because Cinema Studies blends critical analysis with production experience, it offers a natural bridge between scholarship and service. Apollo Outreach extends that bridge outward, translating academic insight into accessible workshops, after-school sessions, and collaborative projects that reach youth from a wide range of backgrounds. The result is a partnership grounded in mutual respect and shared curiosity, one that nurtures communication skills, artistic confidence, and a deeper sense of belonging for participants on both sides of the campus-community line.
[Oberlin Cinema Studies] is really functioning as a model for how a college can give back and participate with the community at large in a more profound way. As we know, in public schools around the country, the budget cutbacks have been crippling, and the first place that's hit is the arts. Along comes Cinema Studies, sending eager, bright, creative students into the schools.
— Jonathan Demme, filmmaker
Students Teaching Students
At the heart of the partnership is a students-teaching-students model. Oberlin College students enrolled in Cinema Studies courses bring their skills directly into Lorain County schools, leading workshops in filmmaking, animation, and media literacy. This mentorship model strengthens both the college students' own production skills and the creative confidence of the young people they teach.
Apollo Outreach makes full use of Oberlin College students' creative energy by integrating community outreach directly into the Cinema Studies curriculum. Through courses like CINE 294, The AOI Workshop — offered every Fall and Spring semester with no prerequisites — students gain real-world teaching and production experience while making a tangible difference in the community.
A Model for College-Community Partnership
Apollo Outreach could not exist without the support and partnership of the Cinema Studies Program and its student mentors. The program's founders and directors — Rian Brown, a filmmaker and Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at Oberlin College, and Geoff Pingree — designed Apollo Outreach to bridge the college and the wider Lorain County community through collaborative media-making.
This partnership extends beyond the classroom. Student films produced through Apollo Outreach programs screen publicly at the historic Apollo Theatre in Oberlin, and free events and screenings are hosted at the Oberlin Public Library. The result is a vibrant ecosystem where college resources, student creativity, and community needs intersect.
Learn More About Our Approach
Discover how Apollo Outreach brings Oberlin College and the community together through collaborative media-making and mentorship.
Our Approach