Four filmmakers will screen clips and discuss their work and careers in the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Visiting Filmmakers Lecture Series presented by the Program in Visual Arts at Princeton University. The guests include Julia Solomonoff on February 20, Afia Nathaniel on February 24, Moon Molson on February 27, and Asmara Marek on March 6. All four lectures will take place at 4:30 p.m. in the James M. Stewart ‘32 Theater at 185 Nassau Street in Princeton. The series is free and open to the public.
Filmmaker Asmara Marek. Photo courtesy Asmara Marek
Asmara Beraki Marek is an American film director, producer and scriptwriter currently based in Prague. She has shot a number of award-winning short films that have screened around the globe. Interspersed with clips of her work, her talk will center on the process behind creating film stories and the decisions an artist makes while shooting an auteur film. Marek is the founder of the Prague-based production company, Cinema Belongs To Us. She is writing a Ph.D. thesis on film creation at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and lectures on short film directing at The Film Academy of Prague (FAMU). She has received grants for films from the Goethe Institut, The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Czech Television, and many others. She is currently preparing her feature debut entitled, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman.
A still from Moon Molson’s recent film, The Bravest, The Boldest. Film still courtesy Moon Molson
Moon Molson’s short films Pop Foul (2007), Crazy Beats Strong Every Time (2011), and most recently The Bravest, the Boldest (2014) premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, have screened at over 250 international film festivals, and received over 100 awards worldwide, including the Grand Jury Prizes at Palm Springs, South by Southwest (SXSW), and the Student Academy Awards. He has attended the 2008 Sundance Screenwriters & Directors Labs, 2008 Film Independent (FIND) Directors Labs, 2015 Warner Brothers Television Directors’ Workshop, and 2016 FOX Global Directors Initiative as a Fox Director Fellow. Molson was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in Summer 2007 and has received grants from The Jerome Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Sundance Institute. Most recently, he was named a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow in Film-Video. He has taught film directing and screenwriting at New York Film Academy – LA, Savannah College of Art & Design, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Film & Media Arts at Temple University in Philadelphia and the Filmmaker in Residence at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.
Filmmaker Afia Nathaniel filming on location. Photo courtesy of Afia Nathaniel
Afia Nathaniel, a computer-scientist-turned-filmmaker, is currently the Peter B. Lewis Arts Fellow (2016-18) at Princeton and is teaching film courses. Her debut feature film Dukhtar (Daughter) premiered at Toronto in 2014 and was Pakistan’s Official Submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards. The film has played to critical acclaim in over 20 countries becoming a Critics’ Pick (Village Voice) 2015 and People Magazine’s Pick of the Week, winning several awards along the way. She is the recipient of the Adrienne Shelly Award for Directors and was nominated for a 2013 Gotham Award. She has been a fellow of: NYFA, World Studio Foundation, AAUW, Margaret McNamara Memorial Fund; a recipient of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Grant and Ezra Litwak for Distinction in Screenwriting Award. Born and raised in Pakistan, She has been settled in the U.S. since 2001. She holds an M.F.A. in Film Directing from Columbia University (Dean’s Fellow) and a B.Sc. (Honors) in Computer Science from LUMS. She also holds a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Physics from Kinnaird College where she won the Mangat Rai Gold medal for excellence. She is in development with two feature length films and a TV series.
A still from Julia Solomonoff’s 2009 film, The Last Summer of La Boyita. Photo courtesy Julia Solomonoff
Julia Solomonoff is a New York-based filmmaker from Argentina who graduated with honors from Columbia University with an M.F.A. and was a Fulbright grantee. Her feature films as writer/director include Hermanas (Toronto 2005, participant of Sundance Lab and Berlinale Talent Campus), The Last Summer of la Boyita (San Sebastian 2009, produced by Pedro Almodovar, winner of over 20 international awards) and Nobody’s Watching, currently in post-production. For television, she directed the documentary series Parana, biography of a river (13 episodes for Canal Encuentro), and The Suitor, winner of ITVS, NEA grants that aired on PBS. Her short films have received awards from DGA, FIPRESCI and a regional Academy Award Nomination. In 2010 the Film Society of Lincoln Center showcased her work. In 2014, Beatriz Viterbo published a compilation of her screenplays. Her credits as a producer include Lucrecia Martel’s Zama (in post-production), Julia Murat’s Pendular (Berlin FF, Panorama, 2017), Celina Murga’s The Third Bank of the River (Berlin 2014, executive produced by Martin Scorsese), Everybody has a Plan (Toronto 2012, starring Viggo Mortensen), Found Memories (Venice 2011, winner of 35 international awards), and Cocalero (Sundance 2007). She currently teaches film directing at NYU Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Department and collaborates with the McDowell Foundation.
To learn more about this event, the Program in Visual Arts, and the more than 100 other performances, exhibitions, readings, screenings and lectures presented each year at the Lewis Center visit arts.princeton.edu.
