Critical thinking and creative work go hand in hand in the Film and Electronic Arts Program, which integrates a wide variety of creative practices with the study of history and criticism of the medium.
Jacqueline Goss, Professor of Film and Electronic Arts. Photo by Pete Mauney ’93 MFA ’00
All production majors take required courses in film history while pursuing filmmaking. A student writing a Senior Project in the history of film or video will have taken one or two production workshops.
Bard Film and Electronic Arts Class of 2024 Film Montage
Watch a selection of clips from Senior Projects by the Class of 2024!
Areas of Study
The program encourages interest in a wide range of expressive modes in film and electronic arts. These include animation, narrative and non-narrative filmmaking, documentary, performance, and installation practices. Regardless of a student’s choice of specialization, the program’s emphasis leans toward neither fixed professional formulas nor mere technical expertise, but rather toward imaginative engagement and the cultivation of an individual voice that has command over the entire creative process. For example, a student interested in narrative filmmaking would be expected to write an original script, shoot it, and then edit the film into its final form. Students are also expected to take advantage of Bard’s liberal arts curriculum by studying subjects that relate to their specialties.
NOTICE The LPFM application filed by the Film and Electronic Arts program at Bard College for 97.3 in Tivoli, NY has been accepted for filing by the FCC on January 2, 2024. The public notice of this acceptance can be found here.
Two Bard College Graduates Win 2024 Fulbright Awards
Sara Varde de Nieves ’22, who was a joint major in film and electronic arts and in human rights at Bard, has been selected for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Chile. Their project, “Regresando al Hogar/Returning Home,” aims to preserve the legacy of Villa San Luis, a large-scale public housing complex built in Las Condes, Santiago, Chile from 1971 to 1972. Jonathan Asiedu ’24, a written arts major, has been selected for an English Teaching Assistantship Fulbright to Spain. His teaching placement will be in the Canary Islands.
Two Bard College Graduates Win 2024 Fulbright Awards
Two Bard College graduates have won 2024–25Fulbright Awards for individually designed research projects and English teaching assistantships. During their grants, Fulbrighters meet, work, live with, and learn from the people of the host country, sharing daily experiences. The Fulbright program facilitates cultural exchange through direct interaction on an individual basis in the classroom, field, home, and in routine tasks, allowing the grantee to gain an appreciation of others’ viewpoints and beliefs, the way they do things, and the way they think. Bard College is a Fulbright top producing institution.
Sara Varde de Nieves ’22, who was a joint major in film and electronic arts and in human rights at Bard, has been selected for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Chile for the 2024–25 academic year. Their project, “Regresando al Hogar/Returning Home,” aims to preserve the legacy of Villa San Luis, a large-scale public housing complex built in Las Condes, Santiago, Chile from 1971 to 1972. Through a multi-format documentary comprising interviews with former residents and project planners, archival documents, and footage of the current buildings, Varde de Nieves seeks to capture the collective memory of Villa San Luis’s original residents and planners. In executing this project, Varde de Nieves aims to expand the label of “heritage conservation” to include buildings and infrastructure that are not considered culturally significant as classic historical monuments and to make connections among narrative, memory, ephemera, and the historical archive. “I’m very excited to conduct in-person research on Villa San Luis, an innovative project that strove for class integration and high-quality construction. During my time abroad, I hope to foster long-lasting relationships and get acquainted with Chile's fascinating topography,” says Varde de Nieves.
While at Bard, Varde de Nieves worked as an English language tutor in Red Hook as well as at La Voz, the Hudson Valley Spanish language magazine. Their Senior Project, “Re-igniting the Clit Club,” a documentary about a queer party in the Meatpacking district during the 1990s, won multiple awards at Bard.
Jonathan Asiedu ’24, a written arts major, has been selected for an English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) Fulbright to Spain. His teaching placement will be in the Canary Islands. While in Spain, Asiedu plans to hold weekly poetry workshops in local cultural centers, communities, and schools. He hopes to invite the community to bring in their work or poems that speak to them, to share poets and writers and the ways they speak to us. “Studying poetry, learning pedagogical practices to inform my future as an educator, and mentorship opportunities throughout my college career have shaped both my perception of education and the work that needs to be done to improve students’ experiences within the educational system,” he says.
At Bard, Asiedu serves as a lead peer counselor through Residence Life, an Equity and Inclusion Mentor with the Office of Equity and Inclusion, admission tour guide, and works as a campus photographer. Moreover, this past year, he gained TESOL certification and has served as an English language tutor, as well as a writing tutor at the Eastern Correctional Facility through the Bard Prison Initiative. Asiedu, who is from the South Bronx, decided early on that he wanted to speak Spanish and has taken the Spanish Language Intensive at Bard, which includes four weeks of study in Oaxaca, Mexico. After the completion of his Fulbright ETA, he plans to pursue a master degree in education with a specialization in literature from Bard’s Master of Arts in Teaching program.
Three Bard students have also been named alternates for Fulbright Awards. Bard Conservatory student Nita Vemuri ’24, who is majoring in piano performance and economics, is an alternate for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Hungary. Film and electronic arts graduate Elizabeth Sullivan ’23 is an alternate for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Germany. Mathematics major Skye Rothstein ’24 is an alternate for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Germany.
Fulbright is a program of the US Department of State, with funding provided by the US Government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program.
Fulbright alumni work to make a positive impact on their communities, sectors, and the world and have included 41 heads of state or government, 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, 80 MacArthur Fellows, and countless leaders and changemakers who build mutual understanding between the people of the United State and the people of other countries.
Bard College senior Melonie Bisset ’24, a film and electronic arts major, has won a highly selective Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) for the 2024 summer session. CLS, a program of the US Department of State, provides recipients with overseas placements that include intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences designed to promote rapid language gains. Bisset will study Portuguese at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Bard College Student Melonie Bisset ’24 Wins Critical Language Scholarship for Foreign Language Study Abroad
Bard College senior Melonie Bisset ’24, a film and electronic arts major, has won a highly selective Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) for the 2024 summer session. CLS, a program of the US Department of State, provides recipients with overseas placements that include intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences designed to promote rapid language gains. Each summer, American undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at US colleges and universities across the country, spend 8 to 10 weeks learning one of 13 languages at an intensive study abroad institute. The CLS Program is designed to promote rapid language gains and essential intercultural fluency in regions that are critical to US national security and economic prosperity. The languages include Arabic, Azerbaijani, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, and Urdu.
Bisset will study Portuguese at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The CLS Program in Rio de Janeiro provides a language learning environment designed to cover the equivalent of one academic year of university-level Portuguese study during an eight-week period. While in Brazil, Bisset will live with a local host family, eating breakfast with them each morning and spending free weekends with them. Host families help students integrate into daily life in Rio de Janeiro, introduce them to their extended networks, and create opportunities for them to practice their Portuguese in a more relaxed setting. Students also meet with a language partner several hours per week to practice conversational language skills and explore the city, planning their own activities with their language partners based on their interests.
Bisset writes that her interests have always been at the intersection of multiple cultures. That is where she feels most like herself—where she belongs. Accordingly, that is why Brazilian culture has always captivated her: its intense mix of diverse cultures. Aside from music and dance, she is also attracted to Brazilian filmmakers engaged in debates surrounding ecocinema, poverty, and multiculturalism. Her ultimate goal is to create a US-based nonprofit that facilitates cross cultural exchange and understanding through language and art.
“I am extremely grateful to receive the Critical Language Scholarship, and even more excited for the opportunity to study Portuguese in Rio de Janeiro this summer,” says Bisset. “As a multicultural-multiracial English, Mandarin, and Spanish speaker, a certified TESOL instructor, a filmmaker, an Argentine Tango dancer, a translator, and most importantly a story teller, my aspiration has always been to facilitate greater intercultural understanding through engagement with the arts and languages. I hope to establish my own organization dedicated to these dreams one day. This immersive language and cultural experience will undoubtedly have a lasting impact on my personal life and career development.”
The CLS Program is part of a US government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. CLS scholars gain critical language and cultural skills that enable them to contribute to US economic competitiveness and national security. Approximately 500 competitively selected American students at US colleges and universities participate in the CLS Program each year.
“Critical” languages are those that are less commonly taught in US schools, but are essential for America’s engagement with the world. CLS plays an important role in preparing US students for the 21st century’s globalized workforce, increasing American competitiveness, and contributing to national security. CLS scholars serve as citizen ambassadors, representing the diversity of the United States abroad and building lasting relationships with people in their host countries.
For further information about the Critical Language Scholarship or other exchange programs offered by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, please visit http://www.clscholarship.org/ and https://studyabroad.state.gov/.
“James Fuentes Gallery, long a forward-looking presence in the contemporary art scene on New York’s Lower East Side, is the latest space to decamp to Tribeca,” writes Jillian Billard for the Art Newspaper. The eponymous gallery of alumnus James Fuentes ’98, who will be awarded the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters at this year’s Bard College Awards, has long championed “artists with practices outside the commercial conventions of the contemporary art market.”
Art Newspaper Spoke with James Fuentes ’98 About His Gallery’s Move to Tribeca
“James Fuentes Gallery, long a forward-looking presence in the contemporary art scene on New York’s Lower East Side, is the latest space to decamp to Tribeca,” writes Jillian Billard for the Art Newspaper. The eponymous gallery of alumnus James Fuentes ’98, who will be awarded the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters at this year’s Bard College Awards, has long championed “artists with practices outside the commercial conventions of the contemporary art market.” This curatorial focus, Fuentes says, was first furnished at Bard. “I kind of picked up this idea of curating as a profession through osmosis, studying adjacent to the Bard Center for Curatorial Studies and spending time in the library founded by Marieluise Hessel,” Fuentes says. “The program planted a seed.”