Student Work

Doc Studies DOC TALKS, Events

DOC TALK (ONLINE): Mayor – Screening and Q&A with David Osit (Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor)


THE BEST NEW FILM ABOUT THE ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT is a dark comedy about Ramallah’s Mayor… offers a striking new perspective on that struggle, with a personal on-the-ground quality matched by grand tonal ambitions that makes it the best of its subgenre. CRITICS PICK. 
—Indiewire

THOUGHTFUL AND GRIPPING… There are whiffs of Veep-like humor throughout MAYOR … but it’s also a sincere tale of a public servant who’s seeking to lead in a world that’s stacked against him.
—VOX

Offers more absurd moments than Samuel Beckett could have ever worked up.
—UNIVERSAL CINEMA

MAYOR is a real-life political saga following Musa Hadid, the mayor of Ramallah, during his second term in office. Surrounded on all sides by Israeli settlements and soldiers, most people in Ramallah will never have the chance to travel more than a few miles outside their home, which is why Mayor Hadid is determined to make the city a beautiful and dignified place to live. His immediate goals: repave the sidewalks, attract more tourism, and plan the city’s Christmas celebrations. His ultimate mission: to end the occupation of Palestine. Rich with detailed observation and a surprising amount of humor, MAYOR offers a portrait of dignity amidst the madness and absurdity of endless occupation while posing a question: how do you run a city when you don’t have a country?

AWARDS: Grand Jury Prize winner: Full Frame Film Festival, NEXT:WAVE winner: CPH:DOX 2020, Best Documentary: Boston Palestine Film Festival, Official Selection: True/False Film Festival 2020.

David Osit

David Osit is an Emmy Award-winning director, editor and composer. David is one of the directors of the feature documentary THANK YOU FOR PLAYING, which premiered at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, broadcast on POV in 2016, and was nominated for three Emmy awards, winning for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary. He also edited and produced OFF FRAME, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and Berlinale in 2016. His first film, BUILDING BABEL, premiered at True/False in 2012. David is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents and the Sundance Nonfiction Director’s Lab.

Please join us for this online screening and Q&A, hosted and moderated by Amir Husak, Director of Documentary Studies and Assistant Professor in the School of Media Studies.

Presented by the Graduate Certificate in Documentary Media Studies

http://www.newschool.edu/public-engagement/documentary-media-graduate-certificate/
http://www.newschool.edu/public-engagement/media-studies/
http://www.truthbetoldfilmfestival.com

@tnsdocstudies
Doc Studies @ Instagram

School of Media Studies
The New School

Doc Studies Latest News, NEWS/BLOG, Uncategorized

“OK Boomer” featured in Teen Vogue

Congratulations to Amrit Cheng (Doc Studies 2020), whose graduating film OK Boomer is premiering today at Teen Vogue, along with an op-ed from two young activists whom the film features.

This remarkable film chronicles the student-led campaign to integrate the New York City public school system, which is among the most segregated in the country.

LINK TO THE OP-ED AND THE FILM HERE

Doc Studies Latest News, NEWS/BLOG

Doc Studies alumna, Inés Vogelfang selected for DCTV NY’s 2018 Docu Work-In-Progress Lab

Ines_headshotCongrats to Doc Studies alumna, Inés Vogelfang, whose project You Play Here was selected for DCTV NY’s 2018 Docu Work-In-Progress Lab. You Play Here started as a thesis film in Documentary Studies program and was later developed into an interactive/AR experience in the Emerging Media & Documentary Practice course. Continue reading “Doc Studies alumna, Inés Vogelfang selected for DCTV NY’s 2018 Docu Work-In-Progress Lab” →

Doc Studies Latest News, NEWS/BLOG

Nailed It, Adele!

Adele-Free-Pham

Doc Studies alumna, Adele Free Pham, was recently featured on the Center for Asian American Media’s website. The conversation marks the release of her documentary ‘Nailed It’, which captures an unforgettable and often hilarious saga born of tragedy, charting the rise, struggle, stereotypes, and steady hold Vietnamese Americans have on today’s $8 billion dollar nail industry. Congrats, Adele!

Read a Q&A with Adele here

 

 

Doc Studies Latest News, NEWS/BLOG

Alum Päivi Kankaro and her new company CraftJam

Päivi Kankaro is a Finnish graduate of the Doc Studies program, class of 2015.  Since graduation, she has been working as a video producer and project manager at Kollabora, a DIY fashion startup.  In February, with her friend Nora Abousteit, she also opened CraftJam, a Union Square craft workshop recently  profiled in The New York Post.  

Continue reading “Alum Päivi Kankaro and her new company CraftJam” →

Doc Studies DOC TALKS

Doc Talk with Peter Hutton

“Cinema has become such a commodified form of information and entertainment that it’s morphed into something that disengages the viewer from their visual discipline and the fact that you can find pleasure in just looking at something. I’m doing something that’s perhaps in opposition to the whole tradition of cinema, which is about condensing our experiences.” Continue reading “Doc Talk with Peter Hutton” →

Doc Studies Latest News

Stellar Week for New School Documentarians

Two graduates, Erin Davis from Doc Studies, and Mark Nickolas from the MA in Media Studies, will screen work in major festivals this week.  A third, Doc Studies alum Ivana Todorovic, will be featured with her doc ‘A Harlem Mother’ in Wednesday’s New York Times (front page, Metro section). The films of both Doc Studies alums originated in the Doc Studies certificate program.  Also from Doc Studies, is Mark Nickolas’ cinematographer Oscar Frasser.

Continue reading “Stellar Week for New School Documentarians” →

Doc Studies DOC TALKS

Doc Talk with Maya Mumma

Which Way Is The Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington

Doc Studies graduate and editor Maya Mumma discusses the making of the HBO documentary on photographer Tim Hetherington, who was killed in Libya shortly after the release of his 2011 Oscar-nominated film Restrepo. Maya describes her role in the researching, shooting and editing of Which Way Is The Frontline From Here?, a tribute to Hetherington’s singular work by his close friend and Restrepo co-director Sebastian Junger.

Doc Studies Of Interest

Call for Entries: The Festival of (In)appropriation 2013

A Showcase of Experimental Found Footage Films –

Since its inauguration in 2009, the Festival of (In)appropriation has emerged as a premiere international showcase of experimental found footage film and video, attracting the work of artists who probe the limits of collage, machinima, remix, détournement, mash-up and more.

Continue reading “Call for Entries: The Festival of (In)appropriation 2013” →

Doc Studies Latest News

Anders Birch, Doc Studies Alum, begins Midwest Shoot for Denmark’s DR1 Television

In early May, Doc Studies graduate Anders Birch begins shooting a television feature doc in the U.S. for Denmark’s public broadcaster DR1.  Along with Danish journalist Jakob Volver, Anders will shoot, direct and produce a 60-minute film on a little-known but long-established Danish village in the heart of the American midwest. Continue reading “Anders Birch, Doc Studies Alum, begins Midwest Shoot for Denmark’s DR1 Television” →

Doc Studies DOC TALKS

Doc Talk with Jonathan Oppenheim – On Editing

What we talk about when we talk about editing. Renowned editor Jonathan Oppenheim (Paris is Burning, Arguing the World, Sister Helen, and the upcoming Andre Gregory: Before and After Dinner) screened and discussed the ways in which he worked with director Laura Poitras to create a framework and context for the post 9/11 film The Oath. Oppenheim’s psychological approach to shaping character in documentary has won him a Peabody, an Oscar nomination and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize.

Doc Studies Latest News

Student Spotlight: ‘Colors of Tobi’ by Alexa Bakony

The American Hungarian Library and Historical Society (AHLHS)  is happy to invite you to a screening of the award-winning Hungarian documentary feature Colors of Tobi on Friday, February 6th!

Alexa Bakony is a current student of the Documentary Media Studies Program.

After the screening, director Alexa Bakony will have a conversation with curator Veronika Molnár, followed by a Q&A with the audience.


The film will be screened in Hungarian with English subtitles.

Watch the trailer here:

BFI Flare 2021 | Colors of Tobi trailer

RSVP link:

Colors of Tobi – RSVP

Logline:

Éva is a protective mother of a transgender teenager living in the Hungarian countryside. She has mixed feelings about her son, Tobias, who is struggling with both his gender identity and growing up. This is an emotional, years-long journey about letting go, accepting, and finding yourself.

About the Artist:

Alexa Bakony is a director from Budapest, Hungary. She is a Sundance DFP Fellow and Berlinale Talents alumna. Her debut documentary Colors of Tobi won the HBO Europe Development Award in 2020 and the Mermaid Award at the Thessaloniki Film Festival in 2021. The film also won the Premio Maguey at the Guadalajara Film Festival in 2021 and the Hungarian Film Critics Award in 2022. Her upcoming documentary, Highways of Hope, is supported by Chicken & Egg Pictures and won the Best Doc in Progress Award from IETFA at the 2025 Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival. Bakony is currently studying at The New School in New York City as a Fulbright grantee.


Event Date:

02/06/2026 (Friday)

Event Schedule:

Doors open: 6:30 p.m.

Screening starts: 7:00 p.m.

Conversation starts: 8:30 p.m.

Event ends: 10:00 pm

Location:
Hungarian House

213 E 82nd St, New York, NY 10028 

Ticket Price:

10 USD

Doc Studies DOC TALKS, Spring 2026 Lineup

Doc Talk: Looking for Horses with Stefan Pavlovic

Please join us for a screening and Q&A with filmmaker Stefan Pavlovic to discuss his film Looking for Horses on January 26 at Kellen Auditorium.

Looking for Horses is a film about a friendship between a filmmaker and a fisherman who, after losing his hearing in a war, retreats to a remote lake to live in near solitude. The filmmaker, himself struggling with speech and a fractured sense of belonging, finds in the fisherman both a guide and a mirror. Despite their limitations, a bond forms as the fisherman opens his world to the young man — a world of giant catfish, wild horses, vast silences, and sudden storms. For one, the lake is a refuge from a broken land; for the other, it is a way back toward it. As they search for ways to communicate, the camera becomes their shared language. Taking the form of a gentle western, Looking for Horses is a poetic documentary about trauma, survival, and the fragile work of connection.

Program Duration: 88 min

About the Filmmaker

Stefan Pavlović is an award-winning filmmaker currently based in Amsterdam. His debut feature film Looking for Horses (2021) has been screened at over forty international film festivals, and won fifteen prizes, among others, the Burning Lights Competition at Visions du Reel, Jury Prize at Sarajevo Film Festival, Grand Prix at RIDM, Best Film at Kasseler Dokfest. Stefan was awarded the Prins Bernhard Documentary Stipend in 2021 and was selected for the Berlinale Talents program in 2022. Pavlović is a programmer at the Eastern Neighbours Film Festival in The Hague, the Netherlands. He received his BA in film directing at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles and his MA at the Netherlands Film Academy in Artistic Research in and through Cinema.

Please join us for this screening and Q&A, hosted and moderated by Amir Husak, Director of Documentary Studies and Assistant Professor of Media Studies.

Doc Studies DOC TALKS, Latest News

Doc Talk: Silence of Reason with Kumjana Novakova

Please join us for a screening and Q&A with filmmaker Kumjana Novakova to discuss her film Silence of Reason on Dec 1st at Kellen Auditorium.

Silence of Reason is a forensic video essay constructed as a performative research into the first international criminal tribunal case to enter convictions for war-time rape as a form of torture and sexual enslavement as a crime against humanity. While working solely with archive and testimonies, the film acts as a memory itself: elusive and fluid, it rejects framing, moving in all directions, spatial and temporal. The singular experiences of violence and torture by women from the Foča rape camps during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina become our collective memories, surpassing time and space.

Program Duration: 63 min

Note: Following the screening, filmmaker will join remotely via Zoom for the Q&A.

About the Filmmaker

Kumjana Novakova was born in the former Yugoslavia and has worked in film and the arts since 2006. She co-founded the Pravo Ljudski Film Festival in Sarajevo, serving as its chief curator and director, and between 2018 and 2021 she led the Film Department of the Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje in North Macedonia. Her practice spans cinema and contemporary video art, with a particular interest in how moving images explore identity, memory and the collective self.

Novakova’s work has screened at numerous festivals and venues, including Tate Modern, MoMA, Museum of the Moving Image, IDFA, Cinema du Reel, Punto de Vista, HotDocs, MG+MSUM, etc. Her feature film work includes Disturbed Earth (2021, co-directed with Guillermo Carreras Candi), which was shortlisted for the Academy Awards, and Silence of Reason (2023), which won multiple international awards — including the Grand Prize and Youth Jury Award at the Punto de Vista International Documentary Film Festival (2024), Human Rights Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival in 2024, and the Golden Lily for Best Film at the goEast. 

Currently, she is an associate professor in the Master of Film programme at the Netherlands Film Academy and is pursuing a PhD in Contemporary Arts and Media in Belgrade. She splits her time living between Sarajevo and Skopje.

Please join us for this screening and Q&A, hosted and moderated by Amir Husak, Director of Documentary Studies and Assistant Professor of Media Studies.

Doc Studies Latest News, NEWS/BLOG

Alumni Spotlight: Suzanne Smith (Doc Studies 2013)

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.


Catch DOOR OF NO RETURN in New York this weekend and learn more about the program here: videoart.net/fragmented-world-2025

****If you’re an alum or current student of Doc Studies with news to share, send us a message**** 

Doc Studies DOC TALKS, Fall 2025 Lineup, Latest News

Doc Talk: A Body to Live In with Angelo Madsen

Please join us for a screening and Q&A with filmmaker Angelo Madsen to discuss his film A Body to Live In on November 17th at Kellen Auditorium.

The world of queer body modification and its intersection with BDSM is brought to life through this rich portrait of an artist and his philosophy of a spirit-body connection. Merging oral history with 16mm abstraction and photographic meditation, Angelo Madsen’s new film A BODY TO LIVE IN uses the life story and artworks of Fakir Musafar to guide us through pressing questions of belonging and the search for an authentic way of being.

Program Duration: 98 min

About the Filmmaker

Angelo Madsen (formerly Madsen Minax) is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and educator whose work explores how human relationships are shaped by history, culture, and kinship, with focus on subcultural experience and the politics of desire. His films and installations have screened at Berlinale, Sundance, TIFF, NYFF, MCA Chicago, Museum of the Moving Image, and numerous festivals worldwide. A Creative Capital Fellow (2025), United States Artists Fellow (2023), and Guggenheim Fellow (2022), he has held residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, Pioneer Works, Headlands, Skowhegan, and the Core Program (MFA Houston). His film North By Current (2021), a New York Times Critics Pick, aired on PBS’s POV, won Cinema Eye and IDA awards, and was praised by Rolling Stone as “a beautiful, complex wonder.” In 2024, the Video Data Bank released CHICAGO SEX CHANGE, a compilation of Madsen’s early works. He is Associate Professor of Time-Based Media at the University of Vermont, based between Burlington and New York.

Please join us for this screening and Q&A, hosted and moderated by Amir Husak, Director of Documentary Studies and Assistant Professor of Media Studies.

Doc Studies DOC TALKS, Latest News

Doc Talk: The African Film Institute Presents with Christian Nyampeta

Please join us for a special screening of short films that bring together a range of contemporary voices exploring the everyday, the poetic, and the political in African life through the moving image on November 3rd at 1pm at Kellen Auditorium.

The program is selected and curated by Christian Nyampeta, who will join us for a conversation following the screening.

Presented in collaboration with The African Film Institute, this screening is part of a growing effort to cultivate a sustained and intimate engagement with African cinema in New York. 

The African Film Institute aims to create a home and a place of intimacy with African cinema in New York, through developing gradually and organically a viewing program animated by fellowships; a growing library; an active writers’ room; and an expanding catalog of recorded dialogues. The African Film Institute draws from the visual cultures that view cinema as an evening school: a popular information system in the service of education, aesthetic experience, and public dissemination—employing a methodology concerning the use of cinema’s collective production, and investing in viewing methods informed by different uses of time, visual and textual histories, and social struggles and hopes in mutuality between their own locality and the world at large. 

Program Duration: 70 min

About the Curator

Christian Nyampeta is an artist living in New York, where he organizes programs, exhibitions, screenings, performances, and publications, which are conceived as hosting structures for collective feeling, cooperative thinking, and mutual action. Nyampeta convenes the Nyanza Working Group of ARAC — Another Roadmap School, which participated in documenta fifteen, and he is the convener of Boda Boda Lounge 2022–24, a trans-African film and video art festival. His recent exhibitions include the 14th Shanghai Biennale (2024), Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2016); Dakar Biennale Dak’Art, Dakar, Senegal (2018); 5th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art (2019) and Risquons-Tout, WIELS, Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels, Belgium (2021). Nyampeta was awarded the European Union Prize at the 12th Bamako Encounters — African Biennial of Photography in 2019.

Please join us for this screening and Q&A, hosted and moderated by Amir Husak, Director of Documentary Studies and Assistant Professor of Media Studies.

Doc Studies DOC TALKS, Latest News

Doc Talk: The Dating Game with Violet Du Feng

Please join us for our next screening of Violet Du Feng’s film The Dating Game on October 20th at 7pm at Kellen Auditorium.

Following the screening, the filmmaker will be in conversation with Amir Husak, Director of the Graduate Certificate in Documentary Media Studies, and Judith Hefland, filmmaker and co-founder of Chicken & Egg Films.

NOTE: Open to TNS Students, Faculty and Staff ONLY.

Set against the backdrop of China’s evolving dating culture, The Dating Game delves into the personal journeys of Zhou, Li, and Wu as they navigate the challenges of finding companionship in a society where traditional norms and modern expectations collide. Under the guidance of coach Hao and his wife Wen, the men confront their insecurities, societal pressures, and the complexities of human connection.

Program Duration: 90 min

Violet Du Feng is an Emmy® Award-winning independent filmmaker, AMPAS Documentary Branch member, and adjunct professor at Columbia Journalism School. She directed the Oscar®-shortlisted Hidden Letters (Tribeca 2022), broadcast in over 15 countries, and Harbor From the Holocaust (PBS/CPB, 2020) with music by Yo-Yo Ma. Over the past decade, she has directed, produced, or executive produced more than ten films, including Maineland (SXSW Jury Award) and Please Remember Me (DocImpactHi5). Her films have received support from Sundance DFP, ITVS, IDA, and Ford Foundation, and screened at over 100 international festivals.

Judith Helfand is an Emmy-nominated, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker celebrated for her open-hearted, humorous approach to urgent social issues. Her acclaimed films—A Healthy Baby Girl, Blue Vinyl, Cooked: Survival by Zip Code, and Love & Stuff—explore the human costs of environmental, public health, and structural crises. A co-founder of Working Films and Chicken & Egg Pictures, Helfand is also a dedicated educator and field-builder in documentary storytelling.

Please join us for this screening and Q&A, hosted and moderated by Amir Husak, Director of Documentary Studies and Assistant Professor of Media Studies.