23rd Madurai Film Festival 2021 : Student Films - curated by Swarnavel Easwaran

23rd Madurai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 

Student Films from USA :  Curated by Prof Dr Swarnavel Eswaran, Michigan University, USA

Venue: Department of Communications, Madurai Kamaraj University
Date/Time: Friday, 10th December: 2 – 5 p.m.

“Through a rigorous curriculum, using state of the art gear and facilities, our department advances 'learning by doing' while grounding our students in the fundamentals of storytelling. Collaborative, hands-on exercises and projects are complemented by courses in film studies. These film study courses range widely, covering a spectrum of important genres, directors, movements, and topics drawn from American as well as international film history”  - Prof. and Chair Annette Danto, School of Cinema, Brooklyn College, USA.

Films from the University of Southern California:

Unmothered (Dir. Urvashi Patania)
For Rosa (Dir. Kathryn Boyd-Batstone)
A Conversation (Dir. Jingyi Shao)

Films from Brooklyn College (CUNY):

1.Between Me and Him (Dir. Alaa Seoudy) 

2.Saigon: Organized Chaos (Dir. Brian Kaspiev) 

3.We Should Talk (Dir. Joshua Deveaux)
4. Self Portraits: Directors Milton Fernandez, Alexa Whyte (Woman of Color), Maya Kirsch, Joseph Edelheit (Silence), and Anslem (Glitch)

Films from Michigan State University:

1.What Happened to Henry? (Dir. Andrew Acciaioli) 

2. Rise (Dir. Hannah Byrd)
3. Drawing the Line (Dir. Evan Kutz)

We are grateful to Prof. Priya Jaikumar, Prof. Annette Danto, Prof. Vinit Parmar, Senior Director Sandrine Cassidy, Prof. John Valadez, and Prof. Johannes Bauer. 

Our thanks to the Young Filmmakers.

Swarnavel Eswaran is a graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India and the prestigious film studies program at the University of Iowa. He is an accomplished filmmaker and his documentaries include Tsunami: Waves from the Deep (2018), Hmong Memories at the Crossroad (2016), Migrations of Islam (2014), and Unfinished Journey: A City in Transition (2012). He is currently a professor in film studies and film production in the Department of English and the School of Journalism at Michigan State University His fiction feature Kattumaram (Catamaran, 2019), a collaboration with Tamil’s cinema’s leading director, Mysskin, is currently on the film festival circuit.