FAMS is pleased to offer and share news of events in support of its academic mission, including screenings by established and emerging filmmakers, guest lectures by critical historians and theorists, and workshops/lectures by writers and producers working in film, television, video and new media.
Want to keep up to date on news, events, opportunities, and other FAMS announcements? Please sign up for our newsbrief!
How do you advocate for gun safety and gun violence prevention in entertainment?
Sophie Yan, Senior Director of Cultural Engagement and Entertainment Advocacy, will address this question on Thursday, October 26 in Stirn Auditorium 4:30 - 5:30 PM.
Everytown for Gun Safety is the largest gun violence prevention organization in the
United States. It works with volunteers — parents, teachers, students, and other
concerned citizens — both to educate the public about gun safety and to advocate for
changes in public policies both legal and cultural. Since their founding, Everytown for
Gun Safety has also worked closely with creative communities in entertainment
industries to harness its power to take the message of gun safety and responsibility to
bigger audiences and bring even more Americans into the gun violence prevention
movement. They share data and resources with television showrunners, writers,
directors, producers along with other creators to inform their storytelling work, calls to
action and media appearances. Furthermore, members of their Cultural Engagement
team are available to collaborate at each stage of their project’s development, from
research and scriptwriting to production, post-production, and final promotion.
Clouds are one of the most taken-for-granted “natural” phenomena. And yet some clouds are not natural, most notably so-called mushroom clouds resulting from the detonation of atomic bombs. For centuries, scientists and amateur cloud observers turned their eyes and cameras to the sky to document and classify various types of clouds. The gold-standard of cloud taxonomy is the International Cloud Atlas, a manual that went through multiple editions since the late 19th century and that offers classificatory categories and photographs. Taking the photographic images of clouds included in these cloud atlases as my starting point, this talk will examine the categorical ambiguity of anthropogenic or human-made clouds in the history of cloud taxonomy. In so doing, this talk will turn to mushroom clouds to trace forms of taxonomic and atmospheric violence via cloud atlases published in English and Japanese during the Cold War. My goal is to connect the aesthetic history of these cloud imageries to the history of American military’s nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands, and ask how these intertwined histories in the Pacific can help us rethink the politics of anthropogenic climate change.
Yuriko Furuhata is Associate Professor and William Dawson Scholar of Cinema and Media History in the Department of East Asian Studies at McGill University. Her first book, Cinema of Actuality: Japanese Avant-Garde Filmmaking in the Season of Image Politics (Duke University Press, 2013), won the Best First Book Award from the Society of Cinema and Media Studies. Her second book, Climatic Media: Transpacific Experiments in Atmospheric Control (Duke University Press, 2022) explores the geopolitical conditions underpinning environmental art, weather control, digital computing, and cybernetic architecture in Japan and the United States. She is currently working on a new book project, Visual Grammars of Deep Time: Archipelagic Archives of the Anthropocene, which examines sets of scientific atlases, photographs, and films of fossils, clouds, snow crystals, and corals in relation to the settler colonial histories of geosciences in Japan, the Pacific, and North America.
Professor Nozomi Nakaganeku Saito moderated the post-talk conversation with Professor Furuhata.
Please join us for our annual Film and Media Studies welcome-back event. Come by for a chat, see Professor Levine's new film, and meet majors, prospective majors, and faculty over snacks!
Calling all FAMS majors, prospective majors, friends, family and faculty - please mark your calendars for some festive time together, reveling in the accomplishments of our hard working grads.
5:30pm - gather, eat & drink
6pm - shout outs to seniors
6:30 - a special screening of Annihay Rawlins’s thesis film followed by a reading of a passage from Eli Maierson’s thesis work
Cake and dessert to follow!
Filmmaker Jordan Lord, who specializes in cinematic design that takes disability into account, will visit Amherst on March 28 and April 25 for two Masterclass sessions. Jordan Lord's visit will be the first in the FAMS program's Kaufman Masterclass Series, which will bring emerging and distinguished filmmakers to Amherst to share their skills.
Lord's film Shared Resources (2021, 98 mins) will play on Thursday March 23, 7PM at Amherst Cinema as part of the Bellwether Series, followed by a virtual conversation with the filmmaker. Free to Amherst students!
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION:
In this FAMS masterclass, we'll seek to work with access as a fundamental practice in filmmaking. Although making something more accessible is frequently thought of as rendering it simpler or more transparent, we will consider another, more apparent reality: that access usually makes things thicker or more opaque. Thinking with disabled artists' approaches to representing care and access work, as well as practices of film editing where bodies also act as cuts, we will think through embodiment as both a limit and a material for work grounded in access.
Participants who attend the March 28 session will have the option to make and workshop a project on which they will receive feedback and support during the April 25 session.
ELIGIBILITY:
There are no pre-requisites for participating in this masterclass. Enrollment in the first session will be open to all and uncapped. The second session will be open to all who wish to return, with 10 slots reserved for those who wish to present works-in-progress for feedback and critique (we will work hard to accommodate FAMS majors, especially those enrolled in FAMS 410 "Disability, Media, and the Art of Access"). We will be reserving some spaces for Five College Students.
REGISTRATION:
Please click on the link below to access the registration form. Registration closes at 3pm on Friday March 24.
The Five College Film Festival’s mission is to share the stories of students from across the Five Colleges through the medium of film. We encourage all students, regardless of background or experience with filmmaking, to share their stories. If you have any questions please feel free to email 5collegefilmfestival@gmail.com.
Professor Rangan is helping coordinate two screenings for the March 2023 Bellwether Film Series at Amherst Cinema. Read more about the films and the series at the links below.
Shared Resources (dir. Jordan Lord, 2021, 98 mins) Thursday March 23, 7pm, to be followed by a live-zoom conversation with the filmmaker.
100 Ways to Cross the Border (dir. Amber Bemak, 2022, 84 mins) Thursday March 30, 7pm, to be followed by an in-person conversation with the filmmaker.
Hosted by the Women’s and Gender Center, and co-sponsored by FAMS, we are pleased to announce an upcoming screening of the documentary film: Fly So Far, with director Celina Escher.
Fly So Far focuses on the lives of 17 women in the Ilopango prison in El Salvador and their wrongful incarceration because of miscarriages and stillbirths. These 17 Women were charged with aggravated homicide and sentenced to 30 years in prison. While this documentary focuses on El Salvador’s strict reproductive laws, it also focuses on the life of Teodora Vasquez, the spokesperson of the 17 accused of aggravated homicide.
Two FAMS majors are invited to a dinner with the director prior to the screening. Contact dathompson@amherst.edu to reserve your space (available on a first come first serve basis).
Website: https://www.flysofarfilm.com/
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/339442030?embedded=true&source=video_title&owner=37865992
The FAMS Program welcomes students, faculty, friends and family to two panel presentations showcasing the creative and critical work of FAMS Seniors. A full program can be found here: Symposium Program
All FAMS Majors are expected to attend in person. Support your classmates, and learn more about the work involved in this important capstone requirement. Prospective Majors are strongly encouraged to attend as well. *In person audience members requested to mask*. For family and friends wishing to tune in virtually: ZOOM LINK HERE
Adapted from the final project of Professor Guilford’s class, Intimate Film Cultures, Andrenae will read from a film diary that combines lyrical descriptive voice with a critical analysis of films that evoke hapticity to convey subjectivity.
This thesis investigates colonialist, imperialist or otherwise fraught messaging contained, implicitly or explicitly, in Hollywood science-fiction and action films made during the Iraq War. It then ponders if fiction films with analogous themes to the War on Terror manufactured consent or created tolerance for U.S. foreign interventions post-9/11.
This project explores social media’s tangible effects on our society through the lens of language. By studying the extent to which language that originated from Black Twitter has dispersed into our everyday vernacular, this research aims to prove that these online communities are distinct, and yet impactful on the way that we interact with each other. It also points to the importance of language as a cultural marker and community boundary, for Black communities “irl,” and online, too.
Anniyah will discuss the process and methodology of filming her thesis project (which is an experimental documentary focused on the domestic as an area of creativity via the filmmaker's grandparents), as well as the way her methods and thoughts shifted during the process of filming and reviewing her own images. Anniyah will be outlining her new focus, which are the connections between the land, gardening, and cooking as spaces for love, connection, and creativity.
Come join a conversation on charting a career in film and media industries, creative fields, academic work, and beyond. FAMS alumni will join us virtually from around the country to share insights on the various paths they’ve taken and interests pursued since graduation.There will be plenty of opportunities to share and ask questions. Refreshments will be provided.
Featured Alumni bios below.
Meghan McDonough is a journalist and filmmaker based (mostly) in New York. After studying Film and Media Studies at Amherst College, she received the Davis Foundation Projects for Peace grant to document #NiUnaMenos, a nationwide movement for gender equality in Argentina. Upon returning to the U.S., she worked at a small documentary production company in Boston before moving to New York to work as a video journalist at Quartz. Her freelance work has since appeared in places like NBC, The New Yorker, Scientific American, and FiveThirtyEight.
After graduating from Amherst, Kameron Millner, a double major in LJST and Film & Media studies, joined the NFL's rotational program. Post a whirlwind two years of program management, product management and project management Kameron became the first analyst ever hired by NFL Films to serve as a segment editor cutting on shows such as Hard Knocks, Inside the NFL and NFL Game Day All Access. Currently she operates as a Product Content Associate for a financial tech company creating marketing and training videos while also developing independent short films in New York City and working as a Graphics PA for CBS Weekend News.
Alexandra Morgan-Welch is the Director of Strategy & Business Development at Universal Studio Group (USG), Comcast NBCUniversal's group of Domestic and International TV Studios. Prior to joining USG, Alexandra worked in various roles across the company, including Corporate Strategy, Data Science, DEI, Go-To-Market, Strategic Insights, and Ad Sales as a participant in their Rotational Leadership Program and as an MBA Intern. Before business school, Alexandra worked as a Senior Analyst in New Business Operations and Strategic Change at Credit Suisse in New York.
Alexandra holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA from Amherst College. Alexandra serves on the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras' (BYSO) Council and as a BYSO Alumni Ambassador after spending over a decade as a violist.
Hunter Whitaker-Morrow is an artist and television analyst currently residing in Chicago, IL where he is pursuing an MFA in Studio Art with a concentration in Film, Video, New Media, and Animation at The School of the Arts Institute of Chicago. At present, his artistic practice centers on explorations of moving image form, as well as the methods of its presentation and dissemination, in producing socio-cultural histories. In addition, Whitaker-Morrow works full time as a Manager of Content & Consumer Insights for NBCUniversal where he leads studies and analysis of current television programs and the viewership landscape to support NBCU's digital and linear portfolio.
FAMS is pleased to welcome Branwen Kiemute Okpako to campus to deliver the Fall 2022 Keyssar Lecture. Okpako is an acclaimed filmmaker and the Chancellor's Fellow and Associate Professor of the Department of Cinema and Digital Media at University of California, Davis.
Join Okpako for her multi-award winning documentary: Dreckfresser (Dirt for Dinner) on the life of Sam Meffire. The son of a German mother and a Cameroonian father, Meffire became the first black policeman in Saxony, and a national advertising campaign used him as a symbol of a multicultural, integrated East Germany. But East Germany was far from integrated and life became ever more complicated for the young man. He left the police force, started a private security firm, and finally turned to crime.
A Q&A will follow the screening, moderated by Professor Lise Sanders.
Okpako's much-anticipated film Return to Chibok had its world premiere at London-based film festival Film Africa in October 2022. Okpako's lecture will revolve around her process of making films and its evolution over the years. She will also share lessons from teaching filmmaking and film reading in the academic context.
"Film is a tool for interrogating one's surroundings, but its intervention is not benign and its presence has changed everything about our being” -Okpako.
Professor Okpako will also visit Melodrama and Film Noir on 11/29 to discuss her film Tal der Ahnungslosen, for which a separate screening will be announced.
These events are free and open to all members of the 5-College community. A virtual option will also be available to 5-College community members to view the lecture on Tuesday evening. Please follow the link to sign up with your 5-college email address.
Please contact Danielle Thompson if you have any accessibility needs or questions.
In concert with Interference Archive’s Defend / Defund exhibition, this series of electrifying and rarely screened films invite us to “watch the cops” with a critical perspective. Made from the late 60s to 90s—as police budgets swelled and violence against poor communities of color intensified—they offer a cinematic survey of the movement to resist police and reallocate resources. The series travels through neighborhoods, city blocks, and community spaces where dreams of freedom clashed, often literally, with the police.
Revealing New York as both a rehearsal space and ground zero of the prison state, Watch the Cops! highlights the geography of policing and the media that redrew the map for our abolitionist future.