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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
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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 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.

Doc Studies Latest News

Doc Talk: A Fidai Film with Filmmaker Kamal Aljafari

Please join us for our next screening of A Fidai Film, followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Kamal Aljafari on October 6th at 1pm in Kellen Auditorium.

In the summer of 1982, the Israeli army invaded Beirut. During this time, it raided the Palestinian Research Center and looted its entire archive. The archive contained historical documents of Palestine, including a collection of still and moving images. Taking this as a premise, ‘A Fidai Film’ aims to create a counter-narrative to this loss, presenting a form of cinematic sabotage that seeks to reclaim and restore the looted memories of Palestinian history. It’s a poignant exploration of identity, memory, and resistance, told through a unique blend of documentary and experimental filmmaking techniques. (Doha Film Institute)

Program Duration: 80 min

About Kamal Aljafari

Kamal Aljafari is a Palestinian filmmaker and artist. His films have screened at major festivals and museums, including Locarno, London, Viennale, and the 35th Bienal de São Paulo. He has received prestigious awards from FIDMarseille, Pesaro, and Visions du Réel. In 2024, IndieLisboa hosted a full retrospective of his work. Aljafari has taught at The New School and DFFB in Berlin and was a Film Study Center fellow at Harvard. Currently a fellow at Columbia University’s Institute for Ideas and Imagination, he is developing “Beirut 1931,” a fiction film to be shot in Jaffa.

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

Join us for our 1st Doc Talk of Fall 2025!

We’re excited to open the Fall 2025 Doc Talks screening season with The Shards by Masha Chernaya, followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker.

In Spring 2022 Masha prepares to leave Russia – her homeland that has changed. It turns into a chain of unexpected farewells: her mom dies of cancer, her lover flees army conscription, everything including her own old self is falling apart. Her way to cope with the grief is to fixate everything with her camera. Her anger guides her to inner emigration to the local underground scene, which became an escape for young Russians. This kaleidoscope of shards chronicles not only the spirit of the time, but the director’s personality crumbling against the backdrop of global turmoil.

With a multifaceted background, Masha Chernaya works as a director and cinematographer, editor, text author, photographer, and illustrator, blending her diverse talents to create compelling visual narratives. Her most recent feature documentary The Shards (2024) has won the Doc Alliance award for Best Feature Film.

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