The Program in Visual Arts in the Lewis Center for the Arts and the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University will present new work by students in a series of film screenings. On May 10 at 7:30 p.m., a Junior + Senior Film Festival screening will feature eleven new, short films in animation, documentary and narrative genres made by students who are focusing on film as their independent work. On May 11 at 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. and on May 12 at 7:30 p.m., a Film + Video Classes Screening will feature 40 short student films created in spring 2023 semester courses. Documentary and animated films will be shown on May 11, followed by narrative films on May 12. Refreshments will be served each evening. All the events will be held in the James Stewart Film Theater at 185 Nassau Street and are free and open to the public. The Film Theater is an accessible venue. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week prior to the event date.

Still from a film by Princeton student Titi Sodimu ’23, created as their senior independent work for the Department of Art & Archaeology. Photo courtesy Titi Sodimu

The eleven juniors and seniors presenting their films on May 10 are either pursuing certificates in the Program in Visual Arts with a focus on film while majoring in another area of study at the University, or they are completing degrees in the Practice of Art track offered through the Department of Art and Archaeology. The filmmakers include seniors Lola Constantino, Allen Delgado, Titi Sodimu and Wendi Yan, along with juniors David Akpokiere, Tiffany Deane, Daniel Drake, Sreesha Ghosh, Kirsten Pardo, Justin Zhang, and Briony Zhao.

The short works being screened on May 11 are from the courses “Representation in Documentary Filmmaking,” taught by Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt, “Digital Animation,” taught by Tim Szetela, and “Documentary Filmmaking II,” taught by Su Friedrich. Perlmutt’s class, which was offered as a Freshman Seminar open to all first-year students, focuses on cross-cultural issues surrounding representation in documentary filmmaking and challenges students to make two short documentary films — one set within their own cultural sphere, and another set outside of it. Szetela’s popular animation course engages students in a variety of timed-based collage, composition, visualization, and storytelling techniques in order to learn the fundamentals of 2D animation production. In Friedrich’s advanced course, each student produces a short documentary while also analyzing classic and contemporary strategies in documentary filmmaking.

On May 12, the screening includes films from the introductory and advanced sections of the course “Narrative Filmmaking,” taught by Moon Molson. In both levels of his course, Molson introduces students to narrative and avant-garde narrative film production and advises on basic tools and advanced techniques for storytelling with digital media.

Still from a film by Princeton student Michael Tran ’23, created in the “Digital Animation” course taught by Tim Szetela. Photo courtesy Michael Tran

The undergraduate students presenting their short films on both dates include Minna Abdella, Mia Beams, Truth Betts-McCullum, Jojo Deep, John Ehling, Eric Fenno, Aditya Gandotra, Arin Gardner, Anthony Gartner, Azi Jones, Matt Kuenne, Annette Lee, Kathy Li, Lindsay Li, Benjamin Licciardi, Samantha Lopez-Rico, Dawn Luong, Avantika Matele, Madeline McDonald, Marissa Mejia, Paige Morton, Feruza Mukhammadieva, Joey Nartker, Connor Odom, Megan Pan, Maria Luisa Parada, Simar Parmar, Arosheny Puvanenthirarajah, Adrian Rogers, Luke Shannon, Aaysh Sharma, Hannah Shin, Caple Spence, Alexis Sursock, Michelle Tang, Stephanie Tang, Michael Tran, Sanjana Venkatesh, Maximillian Young, and Charles Yu.

Friedrich has produced and directed twenty-four films and videos, including Today (2022), I Cannot Tell You How I Feel (2016), Gut Renovation (2012), The Odds of Recovery (2002), Hide and Seek (1996), Sink or Swim (1990), Damned If You Don’t (1987), and The Ties That Bind (1984). Friedrich is the writer, director, cinematographer, and editor of all her films except Hide and Seek, which was shot by Jim Denault. Friedrich’s films have won many awards including Grand Prix at the Melbourne Film Festival, Best Narrative Film at the Athens Film Festival, Outstanding Documentary Feature at Outfest, and the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco Film Festival. In 2016, her film Sink or Swim was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress. Her work has been the subject of retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, The Stadtkino in Vienna, the Buenos Aires Festival of Independent Cinema, the First Tokyo Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, and the Anthology Film Archives in NY. Friedrich has received the Alpert Award; fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Guggenheim and the NEA; grants from ITVS and the DAAD, and multiple grants from NYSCA, the NYFA and the Jerome Foundation. Her films are distributed by Outcast Films and Icarus Films. In May, Friedrich is retiring from the Princeton faculty after serving 25 years as professor in the visual arts program.

Molson’s short films have premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, screened at over 250 international film festivals, and have received more than 100 awards worldwide, including the Grand Jury Prizes at Palm Springs, South by Southwest (SXSW), and the Student Academy Awards. His screenplay Johnny Ace was a finalist for Best Screenplay at the 2018 Urbanworld Film Festival, and his most recent screenplay, Hyper/Space, won top honors at the 2022 Urbanworld Film Festival in October. He has attended the 2008 Sundance Screenwriters & Directors Labs, the 2008 Film Independent (FIND) Directors Labs, the 2015 Warner Brothers Television Directors’ Workshop, and 2016 FOX Global Directors Initiative as a Fox Director Fellow. Molson was named a 2017 Pew Foundation Fellow, a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow in Film-Video, and was one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in summer 2007. He has received grants from the San Francisco Film Society, The Jerome Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Sundance Institute.

Perlmutt most recently directed the Emmy-nominated historical documentary Massacre at the Stadium (Netflix, 2019). He directed, produced, and edited Havana Motor Club (Samuel Goldwyn Films, 2016), which premiered at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival and screened as part of the exhibition Motion. Autos, Art, Architecture at the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao. His other documentary film work includes Diana Vreeland: The Eye has to Travel, Lumo, Control Room, Valentino: The Last Emperor, Les Vulnerables, Invisible Killers: Ebola, Man V. Volcano, and other projects. Perlmutt’s commercial work has included directing and editing over 30 spots for Estée Lauder, Gucci, Bulgari, Rag & Bone, Samsung, H&M, Vogue, and others. He has served as a correspondent for UNICEF and has made films for non-governmental organizations including The Chopra Center, HelpAge International, UNIFEM, the New York Academy of Medicine, Every Mother Counts, and HEAL Africa. Perlmutt is a member of the Director’s Guild of America, the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Indie Film,” and a recipient of two Sundance Institute/Sloan Foundation grants. Prior to Princeton, he taught filmmaking at Columbia University, William Paterson University, and for organizations in Africa.

Szetela is a designer, animator and digital artist who makes moving images, games, and assorted interfaces to visualize location, language, and other patterns. Rewordable, the game he co-designed using computational linguistics, was published by Penguin Random House. His short films have screened at numerous international animation festivals, including Anima Mundi, Annecy, Ottawa International Animation Festival, and Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films. Hi work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City, the Museum of Fine Arts and Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, as well as a variety of digital art, game, and technology festivals and exhibitions. Szetela has taught digital animation and data drawing courses in the Program in Visual Arts since 2017. This fall at Princeton he organized Games &&, a symposium featuring artists, designers, and researchers who explore and experiment with the tools and techniques of game design and development.

Visit the Lewis Center website to learn more about this event, the Program in Visual Arts, and the more than 100 other performances, exhibitions, readings, screenings, concerts and lectures offered each year by the Lewis Center, most of them free. Visit the Department of Art and Archaeology’s website to learn more about the department’s programs and events.