We’re thrilled to share that Suzanne Smith’s short film DOOR OF NO RETURN will have its New York premiere this weekend (Nov 16) at the Video Arts Festival at Cinema Village, as part of the Fragmented World program.
Synopsis: A full body artist, Gregory Maqoma, navigates his own identity through a deeply personal narrative performed at House of Slaves on Goree Island, Senegal, a landmark to one of humanity’s most horrific journeys. Yearning for a way to move through past and present complexities, Gregory’s artistry breaks down walls and reframes history.
Suzanne’s recent work continues to gain international recognition — her feature documentary JOY DANCER premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival last year.
We are thrilled to announce that several alumni of the Doc Studies program have been selected to showcase their films at DOC NYC, the largest documentary festival in America, this November! Orgy Every Other Day by Samuel Döring (Class of 2024) and If I’m Being Honest by B.A. Williams (Class of 2024) have been chosen for the shorts programs, while Dark Chambers by Jordan Salyers (Class of 2024) was competitively selected for DOC NYC U. All three short films were previously featured during our 17th annual Doc Studies showcase, Truth Be Told 2024. Congratulations to our talented alumni!
Explore their backgrounds, the films’ synopses, and screening details below.
Orgy Every Other Day
Director/Writer: Samuel Döring
In basements and lofts NYC’s queer underground sex party community has created spaces where people can play and enjoy orgies in a safe and semi-public environment. The film explores what these places mean to people, where these parties originate from and why it might be important for them to remain underground. (USA 13 MIN)
Samuel Döring is a German-French filmmaker, festival programmer, and film critic. They graduated with their debut short film Orgy Every Other Day as part of the Documentary Studies class of 2024 at The New School, funded by the Fulbright Program. Sam worked as a cultural programmer at Goethe-Institut Senegal and as a program coordinator at DOK Leipzig and hosts the film podcast Nach dem Kino on Spotify.
If I’m Being Honest
Director/Writer: B.A. Williams
A filmmaker delves into their origin story, uncovering painful truths about their estranged mother. Weaving a vulnerable letter to their son and a recorded conversation with their mother, scenes of domestic life form a poignant backdrop to this exploration. (USA 16 MIN)
B.A. Williams (they/she) is a writer and filmmaker. Originally from Long Beach, CA, they now call New Jersey home, where they live with their wife, Nikki, and child, Morrison. They hold an MFA in Creative Writing and are pursuing their Master’s in Media Studies at The New School, where they wrote, filmed, and directed their first short film, If I’m Being Honest. B.A. is interested in exploring themes of Blackness, motherhood, belonging, and longing in their films and, at the same time, juggling the tall task of shifting and centering the narrative surrounding queerness by focusing on the beauty of mundane queer life. Their writing is featured in Rigorous Magazine, Every-Other Broadsides, The Rumpus, and The New York Times: Parenting. (photographed by: Michael DeJour)
Dark Chambers
Directors: Jordan & Kanette Salyers
In the shadow of covid-19, the filmmaker and his mother huddle around their family photo album, updating old media and transcribing written histories. But in preserving these dark chambers, what goes to rot?
Jordan Salyers (he/him) was born in Maryland, 1992, to an extraordinary, singular single-mother, Kanette. His first act of independence was flunking out of the local college. He then made the most regretful decision, in 2012, to enlist in the US Navy. He has a lot to say about that. In 2019, he grew out his hair and relocated to NYC as a student at The New School. He works with blended fictions; he likes found-footage film and video; he loves his partner, Victoria, and her cat, Uma. He hopes to remain a student indefinitely.
We’re thrilled to announce that several Doc Studies program alumni are screening their films this November at DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary festival! Rite of Passage by Talha Jalal (Class of 2023) is an official selection of the shorts programs, and Through a Glass Eye by Lola Granger-Jourdan (Class of 2023) was competitively selected for DOC NYC U. Both short films were previously presented during our Doc Studies annual showcase, Truth Be Told 2023. Mahdokht Mahmoudabadi (Class of 2018) is the lead editor of the feature film Three Promises, included in the official selection of DOC NYC. Congratulations to our alums!
Learn more about their backgrounds, the films’ synopses, and screening details below.
Ascension examines the contemporary “Chinese Dream” through staggering observations of labor, consumerism and wealth. In cinematically exploring the aspiration that drives today’s People’s Republic of China, the film plunges into universal paradoxes of economic progress.
Ascension is an impressionistic portrait of China’s industrial supply chain that reveals the country’s growing class divide through staggering observations of labor, consumerism and wealth. The documentary portrays capitalism in China across the levels of its operation, from the crudest mine to the most rarefied forms of leisure. Accordingly, the film is structured in three parts, ascending through the levels of the capitalist structure: workers running factory production, the middle class training for and selling to aspirational consumers, and the elites reveling in a new level of hedonistic enjoyment. In traveling up the rungs of China’s social ladder, we see how each level supports and makes possible the next while recognizing the contemporary “Chinese Dream” remains an elusive fantasy for most.
Maliyamungu Muhande, Doc Studies ’20 was selected as a Sundance Ignite x Adobe Fellow, where she will engage with a year of mentorship and support from the Sundance Institute and Sundance Ignite founding partner Adobe.
Fellows were selected from a one- to 15-minute short film submitted to the Sundance Ignite x Adobe Short Film Challenge, hosted on the Institute’s digital community platform, Sundance Collab. The 10 fellows were selected for their deeply original voices, creativity in storytelling, and rigor of their craft.
The Fellowship centers artists in its curriculum, with a goal of supporting each fellow as they continue their respective artistic and professional development as filmmakers and storytellers. The fellows will kick off their fellowship year with the digital Sundance Ignite x Adobe Filmmakers Lab, which runs from July 26 to July 30 on Sundance Collab with a particular focus on project advancement and deepening the fellows’ character development skill sets.
Maliyamungu Gift Muhande is a Congolese Documentary filmmaker and Artist based in New York City. In 2020 she Directed a 6-week, film program for under-represented teens in Monticello, NY. From that program came her documentary-in-progress Near Broadway, co-created with her students, about their lives in the economically depressed town and in the U.S. as it exists today. Muhande’s short documentary on the 80-year-old African American New York City street photographer, Louis Mendes, was screened in the fall of 2020 as part of the Doc NYC film festival and was selected by the National Board of Review. She is currently working on expanding this short into a feature film.
Watch the trailer below!
Please share widely, and congratulations again to our exceptional New School alumna !
It is with great pleasure that I write to share some good news: Our beloved Documentary Studies program will be featured at this year’s (Online) DOC NYC, with four films by the last year’s graduate filmmakers in the ‘University Showcase‘. Kudos to our outstanding students Valerie Neck, Taylor-Alexis Gillard, Samantha Schulte and Simon Tchoukriel whose films are in the showcase, and who managed to complete their work under very difficult circumstances.
“All That Is” by Valerie Neck“The Silent Willow” by Taylor-Alexis Gillard“That Change I Have Seen” by Samantha Schulte“Empire State of Chess” by Simon Tchoukriel
Please share widely, and tune in to enjoy the work of our exceptional New School filmmakers and alumni!
Simon Tchoukriel is a filmmaker from France who originally moved to New York to play college soccer. In his work, Simon focuses on collectives and subcultures with a passion for games, whatever they may be, and what these activities tell us about our society at large.
Empire State of Chess is Simon Tchoukriel’s Doc Studies end of year film.
The game of chess has been bringing New Yorkers together for years in parks, squares, cozy clubs and tournament halls. But how can this beloved pastime survive amid a pandemic? Meet New York City’s most interesting pawn pushers, grandmasters, club owners and street players who keep the hope, and the game, alive.
The Graduate Certificate in Documentary Media Studies is proud to present its fourteenth annual festival of original short films made by students in the classes of 2020 and 2021. Over a period of four days, we will screen original documentary shorts and engage in conversations with our wonderful graduates, whose films tackle our present realities with a keen sense of urgency and care.
Register here for the festival Q&As with student filmmakers.
The New School Doc Studies 