The CU Independent shares information about the group of films programmed by the International Film Series to commemorate Black History Month and the historic collaboration with the Center for African and African American Studies.

"This Black cinema series was, in part, inspired by the community’s enthusiastic reaction to the showing of the documentary “This is Not Who We Are” last semester at the Muenzinger Auditorium. This film, directed by Beret Strong and Katrina Miller, depicts the struggles of being Black in the predominantly white 91������ community.

Seeing this event unfold, Jason Phelps, the program manager for IFS, and Reiland Rabaka, the director for the Center for African and African American Studies, hatched a plan."

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Jeanne Liotta (Associate Professor, Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts) has a Solo exhibition at the Microscope Gallery, NYC, The World is a Picture of The World, featuring a new body of work incorporating drawing, collage, photography, and projection that are inspired by and often include among their materials 20th Century NASA 35mm slides of the universe that were frequently offered in the planetarium and other similar gift shops.

"Through the works on view — an 80-image handmade 35mm slide composition, several single-slide projections on graphite drawings, and a series of colored photographic gels on photogram works — Liotta recognizes that humanity’s visual understanding of the universe is based on its photographic reproductions of what exists beyond what the eye can see. The artist considers the ways these pictures have been used to inspire us, both positively and negatively, and draws connections among nature, astronomy, and the photographic process, all dependent on light and time."

Visit the  for more information.

Also, check out this mention.

Congratulations Jeanne! 

Image from: Jeanne Liotta, “My Mind of Universes Erupting Continuously,” 2021, 80 looping handmade 35mm slide projection installation – Courtesy of the artist and Microscope

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On Monday September 13th, join the CU Cinema Studies department in celebrating the winners of the Grillo Awards from the Spring 2021 production courses! Come out and support your classmates and fellow filmmakers. Show starts at 7:00pm in the VAC 1B20 auditorium. Admission is Free. 

The award is made possible with funds from the Arts and Cultural Enrichment Fee. 

The Grillo awards are designed to encourage excellence in filmmaking and help defray some of the expenses required to pursue a degree in film production. A total of up to $17,000 of Grillo funds is distributed each year to four tiers of production students. Final recipients and individual award amounts will be determined each semester by in-class student votes and a panel of judges made up of CU Cinema Studies faculty and outside professionals. A selection of award-winning films will be shown one night only.

The Grillo Awards are drawn from a University of Colorado Foundation fund set up in the early 1990s by Virgil Grillo (1938-1994), the founder and former Director of the CU Film Studies Program, whose dedication and vision helped shepherd Film Studies from its modest beginnings in the 1970s to an undergraduate program with some 600 students.

Please come and join us!

Winners

CINE 2000

Section of Don Yannacito:

1st Place: Richard Simione
2nd Place: Chloe Serbu 

Section of Sarah Biagini:

1st Place: Devin Morgan
2nd Place: Gavin Salazar 

Section of Kelly Sears:

1st Place: Tyler Mohatt
2nd Place: Milo Lewon

Section of Emily Van Loan:

1st Place: Ella Gano-Wyers

2nd Place: Sarah Sheley 

CINE 2500

Section of Victor Jendras:

1st Place: Myles Aquino  

2nd Place: Stella McCain  

Section of Sarah Biagini:

1st Place: Estelle Sweeney

2nd Place: George Cathers

Section of J Gluckstern:

1st Place: Joe (Steven) Dombrowski 

2nd Place (tie): Trevor Oman and Olivia Shea 

CINE 3400

Section of J Gluckstern:

1st Place (Three-way tie): Jack Vander Veer, Cian O'Maitiu, and Yasent Oliver

Jack Vander Veer

Yasent Oliver

Section of Emilie Upczak:

1st Place: Emma Jacobs 

2nd Place: Finn Murray 

CINE 4500

Section of Geoff Marslett

Class A:

1st Place: Katey St. John 

2nd Place: Cameron Pazol 

Class B:

1st Place:  Zhuolin Hong 

2nd Place: Nalani Kikuyama 

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CINE Associate Professor Erin Espelie and CINE MFA Alumni Emily Van Loan each have a film showing in ! 

The festival features 61 works of film and video by 66 artists representing 22 countries and territories presented in 9 curated programs. Watch Erin and Emily's work in Program 5 titled inside this shared life, and it will be premiering over live stream on Tuesday, September 21 7pm PDT. For more information  

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Mountains are burning, two children climb through the riverbed over slippery stones, cattle owners trim and soap their most prized steers for the show, something has turned a body of water into a boneyard.

Taking its name from a poem by the late filmmaker Jonathan Schwartz, On Fire in a Body of Water is a one-night experimental film screening, presenting thirteen contemporary moving image works in Telluride, Colorado. The program speaks to daydreams, disillusions, and anxieties of the North American landscape, reverberating the seismic ground in which our world continues to shift.

It takes place at the Telluride Transfer Warehouse 201 S Fir on August 2, 2021, at 6:30pm. 

Cinema Professor Erin Espelie, Alumni Christin Turner, and current MFA student Eileen Roschina will be screening work. Check out the webpage  for more details. 

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Film is Dead? Think again…

Shot on Film 2020* (16mm, Super 16, 35mm, 65mm, IMAX 15/70)

*Pre-COVID 19 release schedule

“Film has a quality that nothing else can duplicate… There’s a quality to emulsive print filmmaking, it’s like the highest level of an oil paint for an artist.”

-Patty Jenkins

A Quiet Place Part II (John Krasinski)

Bad Education (Corey Finlay)

Bad Hair (Justin Simien)

Chemical Hearts (Richard Tanne)

Chunky Shrapnel: King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard (John Angus Stewart)

Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee)

Death on the Nile (Kenneth Branagh)

Flag Day (Sean Penn)

Holler (Nicole Riegel)

I Know this Much is True (Derek Cianfrance)

Last Night in Soho (Edgar Wright)

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman)

No Time to Die (Cary Joji Fukunaga)

On the Rocks (Sofia Coppola)

Small Axe (Steve McQueen)

Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach)

Sound of Metal (Darius Marder)

Succession (HBO)

Tenet (Christopher Nolan)

The Archivist (Eric Hand)

The Banker (George Nolfi)

The Devil All the Time (Antonio Campos)

The Eddy (Damien Chazelle, et al.)

The Fast 9 (Justin Lin)

The Forty Year-Old Version (Radha Blank)

The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson)

The King of Staten Island (Judd Apatow)

The Nest (Sean Durkin)

Wendy (Benh Zeitlin)

West Side Story (Steven Spielberg, 2020)

Westworld (HBO)

Wonder Woman 1984 (Patty Jenkins)

See more at:

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Alumni in Action: Kelsey Bollig
BFA, Film Studies (2015)

What have you been involved in since graduating from CU?

Everything. I immediately moved to San Francisco a month after graduation and worked as a photographer for two years. I used photography to get down to LA where I switched gears and worked as a content producer for an Entertainment News Company. Working in Entertainment News was truly a film nerd's DREAM, I was so thankful to land that job. 2 years into that gig I ended up pitching a short script Asking for a Friend to a friend who had recently launched a production company and she picked it up. That project launched my career as a writer/director and brought me to where I am today. ().

What projects are you working on right now?

I'm currently in the festival circuit with a film I wrote and directed called  starring Lizzie Brocheré (American Horror Story: Asylum). I'm also in pre-pro on another feature set to be filming next year in spring. 

What projects do you see in your future?

Possibilities are endless! Along with the 4 projects I have percolating in the world right now - I think I will dabble in TV at some point. TV is getting more and more cinematic each day which is so exciting to me. 

How do you feel your CINE education has influenced your career path and/or how you approach your work?

Man, the film program at CU forced me out of my box in so many ways. The program was very experimental focused which turned my view of film completely upside down. I'll never forget staying up all night scratching stories into super 8 film and taking deep dives into all things Stan Brakhage. These things shaped so much of my aesthetic and continue to make guest appearances in my films today.   

I lean more towards narrative stories but due to that experimental background, my work has become more textured with an art-house flare. 

Did you have a favorite class or instructor while you were a student?

I have 3 for different reasons. I'm a genre filmmaker so naturally, when I saw a horror film class offered at CU I jumped for joy. Janet Robinson taught an American History and Horror Films class that absolutely shifted my taste in horror films and forced me to grow in so many ways. I started looking at the genre as more of a political tool instead of a gateway to cheap thrills.

I was also fortunate enough to take Alex Cox's screenwriting class which completely opened my eyes to my own weirdness. Alex was a huge supporter of the odd and unusual and he always encouraged me to lean into the absurdity that was present in most of my scripts at that time. I really appreciated that, and it allowed me to have more confidence in the stories I wanted to tell.

Phil Solomon was my senior thesis film professor, and the man taught the shit out of that class. He was absolutely a master filmmaker and he understood how to foster young talent. I wish he was still around today so I could tell him how much his class meant to me.

What advice would you offer a current CINE student who is interested in a similar path to yours?

You will hear so many negative things throughout your journey to becoming a filmmaker and even when you're deep in your career. 

You should know two things:
1) People always poo-poo things they feel they can't have. Don't listen to anyone who says you can't or shouldn't do something.
2) It will always be difficult to fully explain your vision, and many times people won't get it. Don't let a misinterpretation of what you're trying to execute scare you away from making the film you want to make. Trust your gut. 

Any other comments or words of wisdom?

Lean into your weirdness - it's going to make you great.

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CINE 4004/ARTF 5004- Topics in Film Theory Cinephilia, Reflexivity… or  

“�ĦMovies about the movies.”

With Professor Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz

                                       This course examines some of the historical and theoretical implications of the practice of reflexivity in classical and contemporary cinema. Parting from the deconstructive works of Buster Keaton to contemporary “meta” exercises, we will interrogate and explore Hollywood’s own historic obsession with the mystique, the magic, and the madness of the movies. We will approach these topics from the perspectives of film history and the theoretical concepts of cinephilia, spectatorship, and reflexivity. Films include: Sherlock Jr., A Star is Born, Sunset Boulevard, Singin’ in the Rain, Silent Movie, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Hearts of Darkness, Ed Wood, Adaptation, Tropic Thunder, and many more.

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CU Cinema Studies makes Movie Maker's Best Film Schools in the U.S. and Canada 2020 list. 

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The 91������ Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts has made The Hollywood Reporter’s list of the in the nation.

The department, formerly the Film Studies Program at the 91������, hailed the recognition by the top trade journal in the movie industry. 

to read more about it...

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