2020 Graduate Student Fellows

2020 Graduate Student Fellows

Michelle Y. Hurtubise, Temple University

Michelle Y. Hurtubise is a Visual Anthropology PhD student at Temple University researching Indigenous media, networks of distribution, and decolonizing film festivals through the imagine NATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. With a background in art and activism, she did human rights and media work in Rio de Janeiro as part of her Master’s thesis at New York University, and she received a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Recently a Flaherty Film Seminar Fellow, she has also enjoyed her work with the Center for Artistic Activism, the Center for Media, Culture and History, and her current research position with Nia Tero.

W James, University of Miami

W James is an independent filmmaker from Naples, Florida. W graduated from Florida Southern College where he earned a Communication degree with concentrations in Multimedia Journalism and Film Studies. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Motion Pictures at the University of Miami and will be teaching Introduction to Digital Filmmaking, for the school, in the Fall of 2020. His film “A Dream of Us” has been to several film festivals across Florida and won the award for Best Overall Film at the Southern Reel Film Showcase in 2019. W has experience with all parts of the production process and enjoys teaching people new ways to love filmmaking.

Amanda Madden, Hunter College

Amanda Madden is a queer, feminist director, editor, filmmaker, artist, and educator. For the past 10 years, they have worked in media as a director and editor of commercial, web, documentary, and narrative content. Clients have included Refinery 29, Conde Nast, Nickelodeon, Food Network, NBC Universal, and Huff Post. They are currently working on a handful of video projects including an experimental non-fiction project in conversation with the artist/ghost Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven and a multi-channel performance video about an entanglement with a wedding, a dress, and the Great Salt Lake. They recently completed their MFA in experimental socially engaged non-fiction media and are currently an adjunct instructor of Media and Film in a Digital Age at Hunter College. They have exhibited work in the Brooklyn Women’s, Asian American International (winner in episodic/digital category), Nachtschatten, Awareness, Les Femmes Underground International, Utah Arts, Newark International, and Imagine This Women’s International Film Festivals, Nasty Women Unite Fest, Hyperreal Film Club’s HYPERDRIVE series, Landscape x Olympia video residency at Elsewhere, and at the Museum of Sex, Performance Space, New Women Space, and Anthology Film Archives. They focus on stories about identity and body, relationship and connection, and creative processes that value care, collaboration, and experimentation.

Alex Rafi, Stanford University

Alex H. Rafi is a St. Louis based documentary filmmaker and educator. Hailing from Miami, FL, he earned his BA in Communication and Cinema Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. After teaching English for three years in the small city of Homestead, FL, he enrolled in Stanford’s MFA in Documentary Film to focus on creating works with utility as teaching tools, as archives of significant people and events in communities, and as films that encourage understanding and empathy. Beginning in the Fall of 2020, he will be an Assistant Professor of Media Production in the Department of Communication at Saint Louis University.

Connor Rentz, Vermont College of Fine Arts

Connor Rentz is an independent filmmaker and a graduate of Georgia Southern University’s film and production program. As he began college in 2015, he started an independent production company now called Kyanite Pictures and has since written, directed, and edited eleven short films under the banner. His work has played at festivals in and out of the country and has taken awards for cinematography, lead performance, sound design, production design, visual effects, and top prizes. He has also produced various university commercials and other video projects ranging from music videos to public service announcements. Connor is currently a student at Vermont College of Fine Arts where he will graduate with an MFA in Film in October 2021. Connor also has interest in theatre, graphic design, and game development and preservation.

Yinan Wang, Temple University

Yinan Wang is currently working on a documentary examining issue of satellite baby and transnational separation among Chinese immigrants in North America. He takes himself as an example to investigate the impact of his long-time absence as a father in the relationship between himself and Zijin, the very first baby of Yinan and Yujing. Yinan is also an ethnographic documentary filmmaker/photographer. He is a candidate for an MFA in Film & Media Arts at Temple University, where he is a University Fellowship recipient and TA for Media Arts and Filmmaking. His works have screened at different venues in the United America, France, Austria, Slovenia, India, China. Yinan’s most recent work, Yen Ching, a documentary taking an intimate look at the how a typical Chinese restaurant owner, named Chen, and his children, practice their very different American dreams, won 2018 HBO’s Emerging Voice award.”