The documentary Boys State premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the U.S. Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize. This spring, Colgate students had the chance to watch Boys State — which follows 1,000 teenage boys as they team up to build a representative government — and discuss it with the two filmmakers as well as a student from Texas who was in the documentary. This was all done virtually. But, as professors and students have learned over the last year, limitations can sometimes provide new opportunities.
In the past, the Film and Media Studies Program has brought directors and filmmakers to campus for conversations with students. This year, because everything took place online, the department was able to introduce students to a larger number of people involved in the films they watched as part of the Friday Night Screening and Speaking Series.
Students were provided with the link to the movie a week in advance, and then they’d participate in a Q&A with the filmmakers over Zoom. Moderating the discussions were faculty members and senior film and media studies majors.
“Our favorite discovery this year was how exciting and rewarding it was for our senior film and media studies majors to co-moderate these discussions,” says Professor Mary Simonson, director of the program. “They asked nuanced, challenging questions and shared excellent insights about the complex issues raised in the films. The invited filmmakers were so impressed with our students’ observations, critical takes, and poise. As we return to in-person screenings and discussions in the fall, we’ll continue to invite our seniors to moderate.”
Some highlights from the year:
John Lewis: Good Trouble — chronicling the late congressman’s 60-plus years of activism for civil rights, voting rights, gun control, health care reform, and immigration
Crip Camp — a documentary depicting the early days of disability activism in the United States; winner of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award
Small Media Festival: A colorful celebration of the tiny image, featuring low-bandwidth movies that stream with no damage to the planet and prove that great cinema can be under 5 megabytes.
BlackStar Film Festival: Showcasing the work of filmmakers of color and Indigenous filmmakers, this traveling program has been hosted by Colgate three years in a row.
Three students were selected for Cornell’s 8th Annual Centrally Isolated Film Festival. Emma Schaeffer ’22, Vuong Hoang ’24, and Alex Chu ’22. For his film La Cena Italiana (pictured above), Chu won the Audience Award. An economics major, he made La Cena Italiana in his very first filmmaking class in fall 2020.
The New York City Film and Media Study Group will launch this fall. It is being hosted by the Gotham Film & Media Institute, where Jeffrey Sharp ’89 is executive director. Sharp has produced such films as Boys Don’t Cry, You Can Count on Me, and Proof. Watch for more about the study group in a future issue.