On Saturday, May 11, the second annual New Screen Fest took place at DCTV, a community media center in Chinatown. The event featured 26 student-made films and lasted from 11:00 a.m. to 6:45 p.m.
For the first time, the New Screen Fest was available to take as a course titled Lang Film Festival during the spring 2024 semester. Taught by Nathan Fitch, the course helped students develop skills in festival organization, programming, and film curation.
“It’s the second time I’ve been part of the film festival,” said fourth-year Rand Rivera, a student in the Lang Film Festival course. “It was a lot of work this entire semester, but it’s nice to see everything come to fruition.”
The screenings were separated into four blocks under the themes, “Sights and Sounds,” “Relations and Reflections,” “Temporal Ties,” and “Under The Influence.” Between blocks two and three, there was a Q&A with documentary filmmaker and cinematographer Kirsten Johnson. Johnson is best known for her work on documentaries such as “Citizenfour” and “The Oath.”
DCTV, located in a former firehouse, has been a sought-after venue for documentary storytelling since 1972. Festival-goers circulated between the theater, photo area, and event space, which was overflowing with snacks.
“It’s very wholesome. It’s also a very nice end cap to the Screen Studies and Culture and Media major at Lang,” said Rivera.
“It feels like it’s been a long time coming,” said Eduardo Machado, director of “Killing A Vice.” “This is my third year at The New School, and I never found a film community. And now everyone is working on each other’s films.”
While the space certainly became crowded — over 300 people were estimated to attend before the event — DCTV proved to be an ideal location for showcasing student work. Every seat in the theater was occupied, with some students electing to sprawl out on the floor to view their peers’ films.
While their subject matters varied, the films were unified by a commitment to quality and complex storytelling. “American Therapy,” directed by Nicholas Aragon-Maresca, followed a history teacher and a bartender engaged in thoughtful conversation. The camera panned back and forth between the two, transforming an everyday experience into something poignant and intense. “Inside of Me There is A Ballerina,” directed by Sydney Merydith, artfully unpacked themes of aging and delusion through the lens of dance.
After the screenings, festival-goers gathered in the venue’s event space for an award ceremony and raffle. Two awards were given out per film block: an audience award and a jury award. A total of eight winners were chosen.
Throughout the day, a bar code was displayed at the end of screenings, encouraging audience members to vote for their favorite film from each block. The jury awards were decided by filmmakers and professors such as Leo Goldsmith, assistant professor of screen studies at The New School.
“We’ve been working on this all semester,” said fourth-year Mariah McSweeny, member of the festival’s event planning team, “But actually walking in here this morning, I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is a real film festival. We did it.’”