Doc Studies Latest News, NEWS/BLOG, student work

Doc Studies Alumni at DOC NYC 2024!

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)

SHORTS: NEW YORK, NEW YORK

In-Person Date: Wednesday, November 13, 2024 9:15 PM

  • Venue: IFC Center

In-Person Date: Friday, November 15, 2024 4:00 PM

  • Venue: IFC Center

Online Dates: Wednesday, November 13 – Monday, December 02, 2024

MORE INFO + GET TICKETS

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)

SHORTS: GENERATIONS

In-Person Date: Wednesday, November 16, 2024 1:45 PM

  • Venue: Village East by Angelika

In-Person Date: Wednesday, November 20, 2024 4:30 PM

  • Venue: IFC Center

Online Dates: Wednesday, November 13 – Monday, December 02, 2024

MORE INFO + GET TICKETS

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?

DOC NYC U: FAMILY MATTERS

In-Person Date: Thursday, November 21, 2024 3:30 PM

  • Venue: Village East by Angelika

Online Dates: Wednesday, November 13 – Monday, December 02, 2024

MORE INFO + GET TICKETS

 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. 

Doc Studies Latest News, student work

Cacau Araujo, Doc Studies ’22, featured in the All Arts Rising Artists Series + THE GREAT FIND broadcast on BronxNET TV

Cacau Araujo was featured in the third season of the All Arts “Rising Artists”, by PBS. The series profiles creative student talent at NYC area universities. Araujo shares the process of making her Doc Studies capstone short documentary “The Great Find”, and how getting immersed in the production and conversing with the material captured allowed her to transform her initial idea into the final cut. 

“The Great Find” will broadcast on BronxNET TV Saturday, January 7th, via cable channel and online, 10:30 pm (EST)

About “The Great Find”: New York is a cornucopia of free stuff. Stunned by the city’s give-and-take dynamics, a Brazilian filmmaker embarks on an investigation of the codes behind reclaiming objects left on the street. As a result, she ends up reflecting on her own attachment to material things.

Cacau Araujo is a Brazilian filmmaker, writer and artist based in New York City. Her work revolves around place, language, memory, and identity; especially women’s identities, and the events that shape and shift them. She is the co-founder of línguamãe (mothertongue), a collective that explores the intersections between mothering and other creative & artistic practices. Currently she is a graduate student in the School of Media Studies at The New School, where she graduated from the Documentary Studies Program and received the Deanna Kamiel Fellowship.

Doc Studies student work

Doc Studies Reel 2019

Pat’s Boys by Ambrus Hernádi

A documentary about three brothers who run a petrol and service station in Queens, NY. The film examines this unique working environment as a home to discussing economic and global issues, migration, and the idea of family legacy.

Originally from Budapest, Ambrus Hernádi studied film theory and worked on feature productions as a camera assistant. His desire to tell real life stories led him to The New School’s Documentary Studies program.

The Weight of the Sky by Uwa Iduozee

Growing up in East New York, 10-year old Allyssa creates her own fantastical universe to escape the pressures of reality as she witnesses her single father Artrell struggling with unemployment and childhood trauma.

Uwa Iduozee is a Finnish-Nigerian filmmaker & cinematographer with a passion for intimate, character-driven visual storytelling. Before moving to New York, he has worked for the Finnish Broadcasting Company.
www.uwaiduozee.com

The Newcomers Club

M.S.131 middle school in Chinatown has the largest number of Chinese immigrant students in Manhattan. Following three such students, this documentary provides a glimpse into the challenges they face and the process of adjusting to their new surroundings.

Tyche Zhuge is a woman, a Chinese, a rebel, an advocate, a life- time social worker, an artist and an admirer of all the creativeness on this planet.

Plenty by Catharina Schürenberg

A visual meditation on the process of recycling in a capitalist economy. From micro to macro, Plenty makes hidden processes visible and challenges our understanding of eco-friendliness.

Born in Germany and now based in New York, Catharina Schürenberg is a filmmaker whose work focuses on social and environmental issues. Over the last 7 years she has worked in the wardrobe and art department on numerous Film and TV productions including the award winning documentary “Casting JonBenet”.

cj.schurenberg@gmail.com

Falling Forward by Caroline Macfarlane

Caroline sets out to make a film about one of New York City’s most eccentric characters Jane Marx. Along the way, the filmmaker and subject discover they have much more in common, including the loss of a brother. This film is an unusual and colorful portrait of friendship, aging and living life amidst death.

Caroline Macfarlane is an artist, filmmaker and urbanist from Toronto, Canada. After working as director of Ignite gallery at OCAD University (Toronto), she moved to New York City to obtain an MS in Design and Urban Ecologies and a Graduate Certi cate in Documentary Studies at The New School.

SUPER by Callie Rose Hanau

This film follows one of New York’s unsung heroes as he struggles to maintain an apartment building in a rapidly changing neighborhood.

Callie Rose Hanau is a New York based creative with proud Pittsburgh roots. Currently, she is a production intern with Meerkat Media, where she is working on projects centered around social and economic justice.

La Lupita by Maria Mayo

When her mother is diagnosed with an illness, Maria travels across the country to be by her side. Blending personal and historical, the film shows how mutual wounds have the power to forge the strongest bonds.

Maria Mayo is a Xicana from California, currently working on her second documentary exploring womyn breaking the taboo that surrounds ancestral spiritual beliefs and reclaiming bruja feminism.

mariamayo000@gmail.com

Poetry of Light by Rebekka Raffnsdottir

This essay film is an exploration of the difference between nonverbal and verbal existence, and the way language and our internal nature influences our ways of seeing.

Rebekka Rafnsdóttir is an Icelandic writer and a filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work is rooted in philosophy and literature, although you will find traces from all creative arts in her experimental streams of consciousness.

www.rebekkarafnsdottir.com | rebekkarafnsdottir@gmail.com

Hello BETTY!

As BETTY – a feminist pop rock a cappella trio – approaches its 34th year together, band members Alyson Palmer, Amy Ziff, and Elizabeth Ziff look back at their intertwined lives. After 3+ decades of highs, lows, and everything in between, BETTY continues to rock, roll, and inspire.

Julia Mann was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, and recently moved back to the US after three years in Tel Aviv, Israel. Julia’s lifelong interest in documentary storytelling led her to courses at several film schools. She currently works as a production assistant for the award-winning producer and director Eden Wurmfeld.

julboltmann@gmail.com | www.juliaxmann.com

The Wizard of Williamsburg

The film follows one very surprising New Yorker as he attempts to modernize magic for millennials and find his tribe in the process.

Zoe Hutton began her career at the BBC in London, working on social issue films. In 2018, she came to New York thanks to the Fulbright Alistair Cooke Award in Journalism, which has confirmed for her the magic of filmmaking – in more ways than one.

www.zoehutton.com | zoenshutton@gmail.com

Doc Studies student work

Doc Studies Reel 2018

Student work from the class of 2018

Unveil by Joy Ernanny
Passage of Silt and Shell by James Macdonald
Work by Gamar Markarian
Arnold: A Portrait from the Zone by Mona Lisa Garcia Stagg
Bar and Girl by Ragini Nath
Mother Tongue by Kaylin Webster

Thank you for Shopping Here by Setare Gholipour
End Games for Lovers by Jamie Lee Mohr
Civic Gothic Library by Isaias Morales
No Convenient Season by Jodie Trzaska
Joburg to Bed-Stuy by Tadiwa Kambarami

Doc Studies student work

Doc Studies Reel 2014

Student work from the class of 2014

The Times by Sarah Secunda
The Chronicles of Chicava by Arati Menon Carroll
Ask Me Why by Andreas Grynderup
Hang Up by Hugo Massa
Staging Realities by Daniela Valero
Love at Dawn by Shirin Barghi
For the Love of Tap by Tefe Del Rosario­-Bell

Forage by Tim Ballard
Red Hook by Mikkel Møller Jorgensen
The Curator by Tara Kutz
Equipo Humilde by Maira Nolasco
Impossible Bodies by Lani Rodriguez
Love You Madly by Amy Shand
Reconnect by Max VanHorn
In Search of Tibet by Smrithi Sundaresan

Doc Studies student work

Doc Studies Reel 2012

Student work from the class of 2012

The Times by Sarah Secunda
The Chronicles of Chicava by Arati Menon Carroll
Ask Me Why by Andreas Grynderup
Hang Up by Hugo Massa
Staging Realities by Daniela Valero
Love at Dawn by Shirin Barghi
For the Love of Tap by Tefe Del Rosario-Bell


Forage by Tim Ballard
Red Hook by Mikkel Møller Jorgensen 
The Curator by Tara Kutz
Equipo Humilde by Maira Nolasco
Impossible Bodies by Lani Rodriguez
Love You Madly by Amy Shand
Reconnect by Max VanHorn
In Search of Tibet by Smrithi Sundaresan