Olivia DrakeThe new film, Songs of a Sorrowful Man, directed by Ákos Östör, professor of anthropology, emeritus, and edited by film major Joe Sousa ’03, began its journey debuting at the biennial Royal Anthropological Film Festival, held at Leeds University in July. The film was then shown at the the American Anthropological Association meeting in Philadelphia, Pa. Dec. 2-6. It also was screened recently at at Brown where it was featured as the lead event in Brown's "Year of India" celebrations (2009-10). The “sorrowful man,” Dukhushyam Chitrakar is a charismatic figure who encourages women to take up the traditional craft of scroll painting and musical composition pursued…
David LowJoss Whedon ’87 will be honored by the Producers Guild of America with its Vanguard Award, which recognizes achievements in new media and technology. He will receive the award at the 21st Annual PGA Awards ceremony on Jan. 24 at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. Previous Vanguard Award recipients include George Lucas, James Cameron, John Lasseter, MySpace CEO and co-founder Chris DeWolfe and president and co-founder Tom Anderson, and YouTube founders Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Will Wright. Whedon is a producer, writer, director, and creator for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse. He…
Brooklyn, N.Y. resident Bridget Palardy ’05 has received the inaugural JT3 Artist Award of Distinction for emerging filmmakers for her short film Middletown B-Boys, a compelling dance-filled documentary that was shot in Middletown, Conn. Palardy and four other innovative young filmmakers from Brooklyn were honored at the first-ever JT3 Artist Awards at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Oct. 22 in a celebration with director Adam Brooks (Definitely, Maybe) and hosted by Tony-award nominated actor Brandon Victor Dixon. A nonprofit foundation created in memory of the dynamic young writer/director/producer Jesse Thompkins III, who died in a tragic traffic accident last year,…
A film directed by Ákos Östör, professor of anthropology, emeritus, and edited by film major Joe Sousa ’03, explores the life of a painter, composer and singer living in West Bengal, India. The 35-minute film, Songs of a Sorrowful Man, was screened Oct. 29 in the Powell Family Cinema inside the Center for Film Studies. The "sorrowful man," Dukhushyam Chitrakar is a charismatic figure who encourages women to take up the traditional craft of scroll painting and musical composition pursued almost exclusively by men before. In a series of edited sequences, the film chronicles Dukhushyam's vision of the decline and rebirth…
For 15 days, Nathaniel Draper ’12 mingled with top filmmakers at the Cannes Film Festival while participating in educational workshops, seminars, pitch sessions, roundtable discussions and screenings. He also happened to pick up an award for a film of his own while he was there. As a student intern at the 62nd annual Cannes Film Festival, held May 13-24 in southern France, Draper had a hands-on opportunity to explore the film industry through the prism of perhaps it most prestigious international event. "It was, to put it lightly, a surreal experience," Draper recalls. "I was able to meet iconic directors…
If you want to study the life and work of Elia Kazan, "you come to Wesleyan." That's what Jeanine Basinger, chair and the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, curator of the Cinema Archives, suggests to students or film fanatics in the community. For more than two decades, screenwriter/director Kazan (1909-2003) had ties with Wesleyan, and donated photographs, scripts, personal letters, and other life documents to the university. To celebrate and honor Kazan on what would be his 100th birthday, the Film Studies Department is hosting the Elia Kazan Centennial. The semester-long retrospective includes 11 Kazan film screenings with introductions, a…
Garfield Lindsay Miller '99 is featured in a July 29 article titled "Dramatic Choices," published by the BC Local News North Shore Outlook section. Miller's filmmaking resume includes co-writing and producing the award-winning and Gemini-nominated documentary The Fires that Burn about Sister Elaine MacInnes and co-writing Stone’s Throw, an award-winning dramatic feature film set in Nova Scotia – among many other film credits. Most recently, Miller, who is back living in British Columbia, was voted one of the top 20 Top Canadian Film Makers by a jury of his peers. Miller’s new feature film, The Last New Year, which recently debuted…
According to Variety, Ray Tintori '06 is slated to direct Shane Jones' debut novel "Light Boxes." Spike Jonze has acquired feature rights. "Light Boxes," published earlier this year by Genius Press, is centered on a mysterious town that endures a deadly 1,000-day winter. Tintori's directed numerous music videos plus short films "Jettison Your Loved Ones" and "Death to the Tinman," the later of which was completed while he was a student at Wesleyan and later featured at the Sundance Film Festival.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen directed by Michael Bay ’86 with a screenplay by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman ’95, opened in late June to mixed reviews, but the film, a sequel to Transformers (2007), sold some $201.2 million in tickets at North American theaters over its first five days as the number one film at the box office. In his review of the film in The New York Times, A. O. Scott wrote: “Mr. Bay is an auteur. His signature adorns every image in his movies … and every single one is inscribed with a specific worldview…
Other presenters at the Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns included author Mark Harris; Mark I. Bomback ’93, screenwriter, whose credits include Race to Witch Mountain, Live Free or Die Hard, and Deception; Miguel Arteta, film and television director of Chuck & Buck, The Good Girl, Six Feet Under and Youth in Revolt. Also Liz Garcia ’99, producer, editor and writer of Cold Case; Evan Katz ’83, screenwriter and the executive producer of the television series 24; David Kendall ’79, director of several television series, including Jonas, Hannah Montana and Growing Pains; Dan Shotz ’99, producer, editor and writer, Jericho, and the…
The Connecticut League For Nursing Board has requested Wesleyan students enrolled in the class, "Making the Science Documentary," show and display samples of their films during the board's annual convention June 4 in Portland, Conn. The science and film hybrid class, designated a Service Learning Course, was designed to introduce students to topics in the life sciences and the basics of documentary filmmaking, in order to teach students the skills and art of communicating science-related issues through visual media. The class was co-taught by Manju Hingorani, associate professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, and Jacob Bricca, adjunct assistant professor of…
Baltimore native Esther McCready grew up in segregated, discriminatory world and was denied admission to the University of Maryland School of Nursing. At that time, the school did not admit "Negros." With help from NAACP civil rights leaders like Thurgood Marshall, she sued for admission to the university, and in April 1950, McCready won her right to attend classes. In the spring semester course "Making the Science Documentary," molecular biology and biochemistry major Christopher Doucette '11 had the opportunity to interview and film McCready about being the first African American woman to attend Maryland's School of Nursing. He also interviewed…