Professor Carol Dysinger
FACULTY
Professor Carol Dysinger won Best Documentary Short Subject at the 2020 Academy Awards for her film, Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl). The short spent the year winning top prizes and prestigious festivals, including Best Documentary Short Audience Award at Santa Fe Independent Festival, Best Short from the International Documentary Association, Best Documentary Short at Tribeca, and Best British Short Film at the BAFTA Awards.
The 2020 Academy Awards featured nominations from various members of our faculty and alumni. Professor Kasi Lemmons' film HARRIETT received two nominations: one for Best Actress for Cynthia Erivo; and one for Best Original Song. Professor Tod Maitland was nominated for Best Sound Mixing for his work on JOKER. Martin Scorsese's THE IRISHMAN received 10 Oscar nominations, including a Best Editing award for fellow alum Thelma Schoonmaker.
Professor Lemmons’ HARRIETT was released in theaters on November 1st, and soon after crossed $40 million in ticket sales at the domestic box office, making it one of the most successful biographical dramas in the history of Focus Features. The film also achieved the No. 2 title of the year for domestic box office among Hollywood specialty film distributors. Lemmons’s series Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker was released on Netflix on March 20th.
Professor Alexandre Rockwell’s film SWEET THING won the Crystal Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in the Generation Kplus category. Many Grad Film alums worked on it, including co-producer Haley Anderson, DP Lasse Tolboll, and editor Alan Wu.
Professor Spike Lee was elected Cannes Jury President, making history as the first Black person appointed to the position. In June of 2020, Lee released his new film DA 5 BLOODS.
Professor Frederick Elmes received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 34th ASC Awards for Outstanding Achievement. ASC called Elmes “a visionary cinematographer who has made significant contributions to independent cinema.”
Professor Sameh Zoabi's film TEL AVIV ON FIRE was selected as Luxembourg's submission for Best International Film at the 2020 Oscars, after a year of garnering many prestigious awards.
Adjunct Professor and alumnus Carlo Mirabella-Davis’s SWALLOW was released by IFC Films on March 6, 2020. It won Best Narrative Feature at Woodstock and won the Special Jury Prize at the 2019 Deauville Film Festival.
STUDENTS AND ALUMS
At Sundance, student Terrance Daye’s -Ship: A Visual Poem won the prestigious Short Film Jury Award for U.S. Fiction, and was DP’d by alum Kristin Kouke. Two other shorts screened at the festival, Buck directed by Jovan James and Elegance Bratton, shot by alum Zamarin Wahdat, and Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s Pillars, DP’d by alum Lasse Ulvedal Tolbøll.
At the DGA Student Film Awards, student Yuan Yuan Zhang won Best Asian American Student Filmmaker for her film Heading South. Gustavo Milan won the Student DGA Award for Best Latino Student Filmmaker for his short Under the Heavens. Student Kevin Wang won the Jury Award for Best Asian American Student Filmmaker - East Region for his film Secret Lives of Asians at Night.
Kevin Kai Ming Wang's thesis film, "Taipei Suicide Story", was chosen for the prestigious Festival de Cannes' Cinéfondation Selection 2020.
Thesis student Alfonso Salcedo Herrera won the prestigious Golden Tadpole award at Camerimage for his cinematography on Lefty/Righty directed by fellow classmate, Max Walker-Silverman, one of the first times in the award’s history that an American film was honored.
Alum Stefon Bristol took home Best First Screenplay at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, for SEE YOU YESTERDAY, the Spike Lee-produced film which Bristol co-wrote and directed. Also at the festival, alum Kirill Mikhanovsky received the John Cassavetes Award for GIVE ME LIBERTY and alum Rashaad Ernesto Green won the Someone to Watch Award, and alum Mollye Asher received the Unrestricted Producers Grant in recognition of her work on Chloe Zhao’s THE RIDER.
Warner Bros released Dual Degree alum Cathy Yan’s BIRDS OF PREY starring Margot Robbie in February, 2020.
Alumna Nicole Kassell won Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series for HBO’s Watchmen at the 2020 DGA Awards.
Grad Film alumnus Mamadou Dia received two major awards for his film BAAMUM NAFI (Nafi’s Father) at this year’s Locarno Film Festival: The Golden Leopard of Filmmakers of the Present and The Golden Leopard for Best First Feature.
At the Tribeca Film Festival, alum Bo Mcguire was awarded Best Documentary for his film SOCKS ON FIRE and fellow alum Chananun Chotrungroj won Best Cinematography in the U.S. Narrative Feature category for MATERNA. Student Sontenish Myers received the All Access Grant from the Tribeca Film Institute for Stampede, which alum Zamarin Wahdat was brought on to DP. Alum Mary Evangelista also received an All Access Grant for Burning Well.
Alumni Cenk Erturk took home Best Film and Best Director for NOAH LAND and Federico Cesca won Best Cinematographer at the International Adana Film Festival.
Grad Film Alum TJ Parsell's THE GENDER LINE won Best Documentary Short at the Edmonton International Film Festival, and had its North American premiere at the festival.
Reinaldo Marcus Green is directing Warner Bros’s KING RICHARD, starring Will Smith.
At Toronto, alum Harry Cepka’s film RAF premiered in the Discovery TIFF ‘19 - Directors to watch, and thesis student Ninna Pálmadóttir's Paperboy was selected for TIFF’s "Short Cuts: Share Her Journey Shorts" event, a collection of short films from what they have said to be “some of the world’s most exciting emerging female voices.”
YELLOW ROSE, a film co-written by Grad Film alumna and adjunct professor Annie Howell, was picked up by Sony Pictures Worldwide.
Alum Rashaad Ernesto Green’s PREMATURE was theatrically released by IFC Films on February 21.
Grad Film Alum Sasie Sealy’s “Lucky Grandma” won Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Boston International Film Festival. The film premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival to critical acclaim.