Bucks County Community College President Patrick M. Jones confirmed he personally canceled a free prescreening of the PBS docuseries "Bucks County, USA." The screening had been set for Tuesday, Sept. 15, at the college's Newtown campus.

Jones told the Bucks County Herald on Monday, Sept. 14, that the decision was his. The college said in a statement that it acted after receiving information that raised concerns about campus safety. It did not elaborate.

The college said it chose to err on the side of caution in canceling the ticketed event.

As we reported Sept. 14, the cancellation caught filmmakers off guard. Director Robert May, founder of New York City-based SenArt Films, posted on social media that producers received no advance warning.

"The BCCC team said that no real explanation was provided to them, but that they were ordered to cancel the event, and our plea to speak with whoever made this decision was denied," May wrote in a statement reported by the Bucks County Beacon.

May said his team asked the college to hold off on notifying ticketholders until they could talk. The college sent the cancellation email anyway, he said.

The five-part docuseries, directed by May and Barry Levinson with co-producer Jason Sosnoff, follows two Doylestown teenagers, Evi and Vanessa, who were Lenape Middle School students when filming began in 2020. The series tracks the girls and their families through fights over COVID-19 policies, LGBTQ+ rights and school library rules in the Central Bucks School District. Its first two episodes premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

The college's expanded statement said it had been excited to host the prescreening with WHYY and was deeply disappointed that the campus community would miss a planned question-and-answer session with former PBS NewsHour anchor and managing editor Judy Woodruff.

The Beacon reported that a similar cancellation happened at BCCC in March, when a PA-01 Democratic congressional candidates' town hall was called off a week beforehand, also without explanation.

May said SenArt Films is searching for an alternate venue. No new location or date had been announced as of Tuesday, Sept. 15. The series premieres nationally on PBS and locally on WHYY beginning Sept. 21.