OSUN Institutions Award Student Filmmakers; Funding for New Summer Films Announced

On a rainy spring Saturday in Annandale, New York, students, faculty, and community members gathered to celebrate brilliant feats of student filmmaking at Bard College’s first annual Civic Engagement Film Festival, one of five student film festivals hosted across the OSUN network at BRAC University, the American University of Central Asia, Al-Quds Bard, and the European Humanities University. 

The students had all previously participated in “Visual Storytelling for Civic Engagement,” an OSUN Network Collaborative Course (NCC) that equips young filmmakers at OSUN institutions worldwide to become the mouthpieces of their communities through the medium of short form documentary film. 

A crowd of 80+ festival attendees were abuzz with curiosity and optimism as they awaited the unveiling of the student’s semester-long efforts. 

Among the student filmmakers who were honored with awards was Aidan Athanasio, a junior film production major at Bard College, who told the story of a New York City art therapy nonprofit and the individuals who have benefited from its services. Upon accepting the OSUN award for best cinematography Painting the Right Brain, Athanasio reflected, “It was a true learning experience […] We carried a lot of equipment throughout the city on the subway and the train. This class is really great because we can leave campus and are given a budget to film, so we were actually able to go to New York and film something that we’re really passionate about.” 

Bard’s Vice President for Civic Engagement, Erin Cannan, took note of Bard and OSUN students’ potential for shaping the world around them. “Civic engagement is a powerful tool that enables communities to lift their voices. Our student filmmakers took great care to help amplify that work and those voices through the stories they told with their art; a testament to the power of civic engagement, the power of community, the power of young people and the power of art.” Amplify the students did, as the crowd cheered and engaged thoughtfully with the filmmakers throughout the night.

 “Films like these continue to make such an impact, because OSUN as an institution has decided to back their students in the form of funding opportunities, both in terms of the course budgets being supplied, and the larger open educational resource funding that OSUN recently launched,” said Eva Egensteiner, Manager of Media Projects for OSUN's NCC network. 

Students and faculty alike are urging others to join the efforts. Andie Shultz' After Birth, which provides personal stories and scientific perspectives on the effects of Postpartum Depression, won an award for best video editing. Shultz remarked, “I think it's so eye opening when you put yourself out there. If there's something you're interested in that you don't understand and which means something to you, search it out.”

OSUN's Open Educational Resources (OER) program invites proposals from OSUN students and faculty members to apply for a fully funded opportunity to produce their own case study documentaries over the summer, or to add a written case study to a pre-existing student film. These materials will be officially integrated into the syllabus of an OSUN course, in addition to being available as open educational resources on the OSUN website. The deadline to apply is May 1st.

See all the student films, a link to the funding opportunity, and more at osun.video.

Post Date: 04-18-2023