At the 2009 edition of the Montreal World Film Festival in September, Film Production student Claudia Hebert, took the Kodak Imaging Award for her film, La Regle du Futur Compose

Daniel Cross’ production company, EyeSteelFilm, releases its most recent film, Last Train Home, at the AMC Forum on November 20th. Director Lixin Fan follows the Zhangs, a couple torn between factory work in Guangzhou and a daughter they see once a year, at Chinese New Year, after an arduous two-day train journey. Fan was an associate producer on EyeSteelFilm’s 2007 release, Up the Yangtze, which won a Genie Award for best documentary.

We are pleased to announce the appointments of Luca Caminati and Maria “Masha” Salazkina, who will start teaching in our Film Studies program in September 2010. Dr. Caminati is the author of, Orientalismo Eretico, Pier Paolo Pasolini e il cinema del Terzo Mondo. Dr. Salazkina’s latest publication is, In Excess: Sergei Eisenstein’s Mexico. They join us from Colgate University in Hamilton, New York.

Film Production graduate Andreas Mendritzki (BFA 08) has won the Poetry Foundation Prize for his film, Fear of Snakes, at the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival (CICFF). The film was made with the assistance of fellow graduates Anh Nguyen Anh and Aonan Yang and in collaboration with poet Lorna Crozier. The CICFF is North America’s largest and most celebrated film festival devoted to films for children - and the only Oscar-qualifying children’s film festival in the world.

Congratulations to animation professor Shira Avni. Her film Tying Your Own Shoes was awarded the grand prize for best documentary short at the 52nd International Leipzig Festival.