Film Studies – Page 4

"Press this button and say, 'Action!'" Sarah Lucente '21 explains to third-grader Isaiah as he intently peers into a videocamera's viewfinder. "Think about this scene. Think about doing a closeup." Isaiah is one of 10 area youth learning about filmmaking though Wesleyan Film Outreach, a program that provides school-aged children with the skills to write, film, direct and edit themselves. The class is taught by Wesleyan students as part of the YMCA's Kids' Korner, an after-school enrichment program held at MacDonough Elementary School in Middletown. Stephen Collins '96, associate professor of film studies, teaches the community-engagement class for two hours every Tuesday with Film Outreach volunteers Lucente, Caris Yeoman…

https://youtu.be/ZnXPMx1Bow8 While still undergraduates, Julie Magruder ’17 and Jackson DuMont ’17 began filming The Face of Kinship Care, a documentary highlighting the important role that familial, but non-parental, caregivers provide in the lives of children. The documentary will be will be shown at Wesleyan—as well as more widely—at 8 p.m., Monday, Sept. 18, at the Powell Family Cinema. September, notes Magruder, is Kinship Care Month in a number of states. Through her work on this film, Magruder has become an advocate for highlighting the importance of kinship caregivers in all states. The project began more than a year ago, when Christine…

On May 23, Michael Bay ’86 added his hand- and footprints to the cement outside the iconic TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, signifying his status as a film icon. Bay’s 1995 debut film, Bad Boys, was only the first of Bay's blockbusters, which include Armageddon and The Rock as well as five “Transformers” movies, with an upcoming release of Transformers: The Last Knight slated for June 21. A film major at Wesleyan whose senior project, My Brother Benjamin, won the Frank Capra prize for best film when he graduated, Bay recalled for Variety that it was at this theater, when he was…

This month, Sebastian Junger '84 and Liz W. Garcia '99 will each feature their films at the annual Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. Founded in 2001 by Jane Rosenthal, Robert DeNiro and Craig Hatkoff, the Tribeca Film Festival attracts nearly half a million attendees. Junger, a journalist, author and filmmaker, is co-director, with Nick Quested, of the film Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS, It follows an extended family's attempt to flee their homeland in the face of violence and tragedy. Edited down to 99 minutes from an extensive 1,000 hours of…

How does one convert a shipyard into a cinema? “With a lot of gumption and very little sleep,” reports Nathaniel Draper ’12, the technical director of the Syros International Film Festival (SIFF). For five days in July, Draper and his colleagues Cassandra Celestin ’13, Aaron Khandros ’13 and Jacob Moe will transform the small Greek island of Syros into a multifaceted cinema space. Projectors hauled over three hours by boat from Athens will be erected on Syros’s docks, beaches and quarries to screen a variety of films, from art house to Hollywood. Musicians and filmmakers will gather for all-night multimedia performances…

A new CNN original series, Believer with Reza Aslan, premieres Sunday, March 5, at 10 p.m. ET. Billed as a “spiritual adventure series,” in which Aslan, acclaimed author and religious scholar, will “immerse himself in the world’s most fascinating faith-based groups to experience life as a true believer.” The show employs the talents of two alumni who majored in film at Wesleyan: executive producer and show runner Liz Bronstein ’89 and director Ben Selkow ’96. Additionally, Professor of Religion Liza McAlister provided both academic scholarship and on-the-ground connections when the crew traveled to Haiti for the segment on Vodou, which…

Patti Cake$, the debut film from writer-director Geremy Jasper ’98, has earned the second-highest deal of Sundance so far this year, with a bid of $9.5 million for distribution rights from Fox Searchlight. Producers are Dan Janvey ’06 and Michael Gottwald ’06; Matthew Greenfield ’90 is senior vice-president of production at Fox Searchlight—all Wesleyan film majors. Jasper's film tells the story of Patricia Dombrowski, (played by Danielle Macdonald)—also known as Killa P and Patti Cake$—an aspiring rapper in New Jersey. In his review, IndieWire’s Eric Kohn called the film the “best hip-hop movie since Hustle & Flow.” The film premiered…

We Together, a short film by Henry Kaplan ’10, has been accepted into the Slamdance Film Festival and will be playing in Park City, Utah, later this month. Slamdance Film Festival runs alongside Sundance Film Festival every year, and is self-described as “a showcase for raw and innovative filmmaking,” with a focus on new and emerging artists, filmmakers, and storytellers. We Together is a seven-minute long story of a zombie who comes to remember the person who he used to be, before he was a zombie. “The film premiered online this fall and garnered a lot of buzz from the online…

As an undergraduate film studies major in the early 2000s, Michael Slowik admired how Wesleyan's film faculty emphasized "their unabashed enthusiasm for movies," the history of film and ways films impacted the audience. "These were things I closely connected with," Slowik said. Slowik, who graduated from Wesleyan in 2003 with a BA in film studies, was appointed assistant professor of film at Wesleyan this fall. His research interests include U.S. film history, film sound, film authorship and film's relationship to music and theater. "Nearly all of the film professors who were so influential to me are still at Wesleyan, so when…

On Tuesday, Nov. 1, “The Battle of Chosin,” a documentary produced and directed by Randall MacLowry ’86, aired nationwide as part of the PBS American Experience series. In the film, MacLowry told the story of this pivotal 1950 Korean War battle—the first major military clash of the Cold War—through the eyewitness accounts and archival footage of heroic survival despite freezing temperatures and bloody battle. A film major as an undergraduate who counts Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies Jeanine Basinger as a seminal mentor, MacLowry is an award-winning filmmaker whose work spans more than 25 years. His previous film for American Experience…

Scott Higgins, chair and professor of film studies, delivered the keynote address during the 2016 SERCIA Conference, held Sept. 8-10 in Paris, France. The topic of his talk was “Benefits of Incoherence: Seriality in the Studio Era," largely based on book, Matinee Melodrama: Playing with Formula in the Sound Serial (Rutgers, 2016). SERCIA, an organization established in France in 1993, encourages teaching and research in English-speaking cinema. During the 22nd annual conference, Higgins joined film scholars from all over the world to explore links between the filmic form and seriality. "I argued that American sound-serials in the 1930s and 1940s, with incoherent…

Film studies major Adam McGill ’16 screened his short film Punked! at the Princeton Student Film Festival this summer. McGill’s comedy is about a punk rock singer and guitarist named Dale, whose allegiance to his music is challenged when a new romance enters his life. McGill filmed the short in the fall of 2015 as a senior thesis project at Wesleyan. During his time at Wesleyan, McGill was taught by Jeanine Basinger, the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, who said, “I’m happy to see his work recognized outside the classroom. He joins a long line of Wesleyan film majors who have…

Wesleyan Film Outreach Volunteers Teach Local Youth about Filmmaking

Documentary by Magruder ’17, DuMont ’17 to be Screened Sept. 18 on Campus

Bay ’86 Honored with Prints in Cement at Theater in Hollywood

Junger ’84, Garcia ’99 Screen Their Work at the Tribeca Film Festival

Draper ’12, Celestin ’13, Khandros ’13 Create Film Festival on Greek Island

Bronstein ’89, Selkow ’96 join Reza Aslan for CNN Documentary Series ‘Believer’

Jasper ’98 Writes/Directs Sundance Hit Patti Cake$

Film By Kaplan ’10 to Premiere at Slamdance Festival

Alumnus Slowik ’03 Returns to Wesleyan, Joins Film Studies Faculty

Director MacLowry ’86 on the Making of PBS Documentary, “The Battle of Chosin”

Higgins Delivers Keynote at International Film Conference

McGill ’16 Screens Short Film at Princeton Film Festival