Campus Goes Hollywood With Filmmaking Club Princeton Pictures

Clinton, 20, scrolls through his phone until he comes across a video of Momo-Chan, a cream-coated Shiba Inu from Japan. He grows increasingly obsessed with the pooch, consuming hours of videos and breaking up with his girlfriend when she cannot fulfill his newfound desire for belly rubs. Tensions climax as Clinton performs a dramatic performance art piece, undergoing metamorphosis and becoming Momo-Chan himself. Viewers learn that chasing pet-like adoration is ultimately futile compared to real, human love.

When Joe McLean ’27 first pitched this outline for what would become the short film Momo-Chan to Princeton Pictures (PPic) in fall 2025, it was unlike any idea Princeton’s student filmmaking club had ever heard. But the pitch worked, and McLean received the green light. Momo-Chan would see the silver screen of the McCosh 10 lecture hall and become the club’s most lauded project.

PPic, founded in 2023 as a post-COVID spinoff of the now defunct Princeton Film Productions, acts as a production company, overseeing student-run film projects and providing them with resources and structure. Student filmmakers such as McLean pitch their ideas to PPic’s board of student executives, and in turn PPic supplies filmmakers with equipment, crew, streamlined casting, and a glamorous premiere event. The club now produces three films per semester, totaling a dozen in its brief history.

Connor Odom ’27, former president and a founding member of PPic, started the club with Kate Stewart ’25, an art and archaeology and visual arts student, and Hailey Mead ’24, the treasurer of Princeton Film Productions.

“Our goal is to encourage community involvement in the filmmaking process,” Odom said. “If you’re a part of the films, you’ll meet like-minded peers, you’ll meet filmmaking alumni, you’ll have a great network in the process.”

In addition to aspiring filmmakers, the club features athletes, tour guides, a cappella singers, and more to create and act in the films. From writer-directors pitching scripts at the beginning of the semester, to the executive greenlight, to the grand release, each project enlists upward of two dozen cast and crew members. Anyone with a boom mic, camera, or the will to act is invited.

Where campus really comes together around PPic, though, is at the premieres. Once a semester in McCosh 10, the club swaps the hall’s usual microeconomics or neuroscience lectures for an evening screening — and they go all out.

As Odom explained, groups like the Triangle Club and dance ensembles generate hype for “huge ‘you-have-to-go’ events.” So Odom decided to take a similar approach, drawing on Hollywood premieres. PPic rolls out a red carpet at McCosh and stations photographers alongside as attendees enter for the showing. Some wear suits or gowns (and others wear Princeton hoodies) as cameras flash before a PPic-branded step and repeat backdrop. “It’s less of a ‘let’s go support my friends’ event now, and more of a ‘let’s go to this because it’s fun’ thing,” Odom said.

At the last premiere in December, students from all walks of campus life rushed away from the flickering cameras and poured into the lecture hall to take their seats. The building roared with applause as students enjoyed the semester’s three films — rom-com mockumentary Proof of Love, the psychological thriller Baby Bagel, and the aforementioned doggy drama, Momo-Chan.

“Our campus is a small orange bubble made up of even smaller orange bubbles,” Odom said. “The way you build a thing here is by combining those things together. Film is one of the most collaborative mediums there is, and that’s why people come.”

The club intends to keep its three-films-per-semester model, but Odom has bigger aspirations, hoping to expand to providing resources to more independent films across campus and ultimately situate Princeton as a player in the media world. “Harvard was a hub for SNL, Oxford and Cambridge were hubs for Monty Python, and I hope for Princeton to be a hub for the next big thing,” he said. “We have the creativity, community, and entrepreneurial drive to have that here, and we ought to fulfill that vision.”

Watch Momo-Chan: