Film and Media Arts

Selected Student Profiles

Current Graduate Students

RA’ANAN ALEXANDROWICZ

Writer and director of award-winning films such as The Law in These Parts (Sundance 2012 Grand Jury Award International Documentary, Peabody Award 2013), the fiction feature James’ Journey to Jerusalem (Cannes 2003 - Director’s Fortnight, Toronto Film Festival 2003), the documentary The Inner Tour (New Directors New Films 2001, Sundance Film Festival 2002), and the documentary Martin (Berlin Film Festival 2000, Purchased for the MoMA permanent film collection). Ra’anan's critically-acclaimed works have been theatrically-released to international audiences and broadcast worldwide. In his current work Regarding Ourselves and the Pain of Others Ra’anan is developing a unique reflexive documentary technique exploring contemporary viewership of non-fiction images.

HEATHER BRONGE

Heather is a sound based media artist based in Philadelphia. After getting her BFA in Audio Production from Ball State University in 2013 she pursued a career in freelance sound mixing in commercialized work as well as several short and feature films. Moving from Indiana to Los Angeles and finally in Philadelphia, Heather has expanded her commercial knowledge into sound based interactive installation works. Her work focuses on family, trauma and healing, culling together the comfort certain painful encounters can offer. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Film and Media Arts at Temple University and has plans to work internationally with her art as well as in an educational field. Contact can be made by email; hbronge@gmail.com

ROBERT DELVECCHIO

Robert DelVecchio, born and raised in New Jersey and now residing in Philadelphia, began his career in the Dayton, OH. It was there that he worked as a co-producer on the short film Oasis, which was shown at the Marfa Film Festival and the Columbus International Film and Video Festival, amongst others. Afterward, he wrote, produced, and directed the short film Lola. The film was in competition through the FirstGlance Short Online Festival from October to November 2017. While completing post-production on the film, he was part of the producing team on a project known as Pens to Pictures. The crew, comprised of Wright State University alumni and students, worked in conjunction with the Dayton Women's Correctional Facility to help incarcerated women bring their personal stories to life. Films from this project have been shown in festivals such as the Cleveland International Film Festival and The Justice on Trial Film Festival. He has a BFA in Motion Picture Production from Wright State University and is working on his MFA in screenwriting at Temple University.

MEHRNOOSH FETRAT

Mehrnoosh is an Iranian filmmaker who’s had a strong passion for literature and cinema since childhood. She received her MA in Cinema Studies from the Art University of Tehran in 2016. She moved to the United States in 2017 after being awarded a University Fellowship (one of the most prestigious fellowships) in the MFA program in Film and Media Arts at Temple University in Philadelphia, where she is currently a student. She has written, produced and directed two short films (Copsi, and America) which were screened in many festivals and galleries such as BlackStar Film Festival, Tehran International Short Film Festival, Trenton Film Festival, Vox Populi Gallery, UFVA, RIFF, London Iranian Film festival, Interrobang Film Festival, Frames Film Festival and many other places. America is now available on Comcast Streampix. It won Best Film and Best Editing at the Diamond Screen Film Festival. She was awarded several grants such as the Vice Provost Distribution Grant, FMA (Film and Media Arts) Production Grant, FMA Distribution Grant, and a Travel Grant from Temple University. CFMDC (Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center) is the distribution company for both her short films. Mehrnoosh is currently working on a new short film titled, Wargame. The film is in the post-production process. She runs the Utopia Film Club, which is a place for all cinephiles to watch and discuss Avant-garde and alternative cinema. Utopia Film club has had screenings every month since 2017. She also has translated and published several plays from English to Farsi while she was in Iran, including Red by John Logan, Superior Donuts by Tracy Letts and Here by Michael Frayn. Since 2009, she has worked as a cinema critic for several film magazines in Iran: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art Magazine, Book City Magazine and Angah Magazine in Tehran.

JULI JACKSON

Juli is a filmmaker, media artist, and educator focused on creating narratives that integrate animation and new technology to push boundaries of cinematic storytelling. Her feature film 45RPM won over 10 awards and is distributed by BrinkVision. Jackson received her BFA in Film & Digital Video from University of the Arts, is completing her MFA in Film from Temple University, and currently developing her first immersive VR Experience. 

Contact; https://julijacksoncom.wordpress.com/

DAVE JANNETTA

Dave Jannetta is a Philadelphia based filmmaker. In 2015 he released his debut documentary feature, "Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere”. “Love & Terror” premiered at the Hot Docs International Film Festival and went on to play many prestigious festivals including Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival, DOC NYC, the Bend Film Festival, and The Big Sky Documentary Film Festival where it took the Big Sky Award. Prior to founding 32-20 Productions in 2009, Dave served as personal assistant to Peter Jackson through his North American production of The Lovely Bones, and spent a year abroad working at Jackson’s WingNut Films in Wellington, New Zealand. During his time at Temple Dave has been most focused on screenwriting and directing actors while continuing to pursue his documentary work. 
 

MARYGRACE NAVARRA

Marygrace Navarra is a writer and filmmaker from New York. She studied English at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, where she focused on writing fiction. While she continues to write prose, she decided to study screenwriting in order to cultivate her approach to narrative storytelling in film. Her first short film, MARKERS, depicts an eighteen-year-old girl’s first confrontation with the threat of assault; her second short film fuses dark feminism, black comedy, and magical realism. Currently, she is intent on exploring the specific peculiarity of young womanhood as well as power dynamics within narrative structures.

CHLOE ROSSETTI

Chloé Rossetti is currently pursuing their MFA in Film and Media Arts at Temple University. Their short film, Sunrider, premiered at Les Femmes Underground International Film Festival in Phoenix, AZ in September 2018, and was featured at a MONO NO AWARE screening at Anthology Film Archives in New York in April 2018. Rossetti’s artwork has been shown in New York, Tehran, Talinn, Oslo, and in the regional US. They have performed all over NYC and Brooklyn, and premiered original work at Dixon Place Theater. Their work has been featured in EMERGENCY INDEX. They have taught, curated, guest-critiqued, and performed at BHQFU. They are a former artist-in-residence at The Shandaken Project. They have been interviewed in Adult Mag, and have contributed writing to HuffPost, HuffPost Queer Voices, The Establishment, Luna Luna Mag, RENDER, artforum.com, The Brooklyn Rail, and The American Reader, as well as various artist catalogues.

MATTHEW C. SHACKELFORD

Matthew C. Shackelford is a new media artist working out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is currently completing a Master of Fine Art in Media Arts with the Film and Media Arts department in Temple University and has a Bachelor of Fine Art in New Media Art from Northern Kentucky University. Matthew does not focus on an individual medium but instead works with a blend of media to further the subliminal stimuli of the message to create a multi-layered response in the mind of the audience. The artist forges social criticisms that are often direct reactions to witnessed behavior. This critique started with an interest in environmental issues and has shifted in the past few years to understanding why people conduct themselves as the source of these troubles. The phenomenology of human actions continues to be a focus of the artist as he experiments with a visual mapping of the psyche. He explores the possibilities new media offer as a means to increase accessibility to the arts. Currently he is developing online-based virtual gallery spaces for artists and audiences who sometimes struggle to meet. This “The Virtual Gallery” project will become an international free space gallery dedicated to the social and cultural interaction of the arts.

QIYUE Q SUN 

Qiyue Q Sun is a Chinese writer and filmmaker, as well as a producer and editing enthusiast. Q received her bachelor’s degree in Theater, Movie, and Television at Nanjing University, P.R. China. As an MFA candidate in Film and Media Arts at Temple University, she has various interests that reflect in her work, but they all connect with her identity as a Chinese woman and a foreigner. Her most recent work, EMPATHY (a digital love letter), an essay documentary about a break-up, has screened at festivals in the US, Albania, Germany, and India.
Email: qiyueqsun@gmail.com Website: qiyueisland.com
 

SONALI UDAYBABU

Other than her filmmaking practice, Sonali has held various jobs including in advertising, publishing, media management, queer feminist activism, sexual health and rights, and media activism. As a filmmaker, she has contributed to projects as writer, producer, editor, director, and cinematographer. Her cinematic interests lay in the documentary film form and its artistic possibilities in understanding selves. She has an MA in Mass Communication from the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre in New Delhi, and in the recent past has been a Robert Flaherty Film Seminar Fellow (2018) and a Saryu Doshi Graduate Fellow (2017). In 2011, she was awarded for her scriptwriting by the Ad Club, Bangalore.

YINAN WANG

Yinan Wang, documentary photographer and film maker, was born in Beijing. His works explore minority worlds in China, and the United States. Beginning his career as a cinematographer, Yinan worked on KALAGUTAGE and THE SALT WELL NAXI PEOPLE. Both of these highly regarded ethnographic studies document the day-to-day lives and cultures of Indigenous peoples in China. Working for the China State Administration of Cultural Heritage, Yinan produced a documentary for the Third National Survey on Cultural Heritage, in which he and his team created a complete an acoustic image archive for the sake of preservation of new found immovable cultural relics. During the course of production, Yinan traveled to 34 provinces in China, including multiple trips to Yunnan, Tibet, and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. In 2015 Yinan returned to school, enrolling in the Department of Film, Video, Animation and New Genres at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. There he explored different forms of film art. He shot his first experimental film, DEER QUEEN by Brooke Thiele and he made his first animation, MISFORTUNE COMES BLISS , with Owen Klatte. Finally, Yinan made his first feature documentary, YEN CHING --about an immigrant family and their American-Chinese restaurant -- with the help of Professor Dick Blau and Professor Cecelia Condit. Yinan is a current MFA candidate in Film at Temple University in Philadelphia. His works can be viewed at https://yinanwang.art

CHEN-YI WU

Chen-Yi Wu is a Taiwanese writer, theater worker and filmmaker. Chen-Yi got her bachelor’s degree in Chinese literature at National Chengchi University, Taiwan, and now is an MFA candidate in Film and Media Arts. A background in literature, theater, and film makes Chen-Yi a hybrid in the field of film and media arts. Much of her writing put emphasis on the depressed life in cities and the ukiyo-e of city dwellers. She is also interested in the frustrating experiences of women, especially those of young adults and “the everywoman” who are considered losers or underdogs. Being an editing enthusiast, her first editing piece THE CROSSLINE is a slowly paced Chinese short film in which the introverted feelings of a nearly broken friendship are made manifest. Currently, Chen-Yi is working on a documentary about Taiwanese girls who were born in the 90’s and have the experience of living in Taipei. Her first short comedy WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM is in post-production, which is about an internet addicted girl who has attention deficit disorder and fails to get her work done.

 

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