Here’s a preliminary list of courses offered Fall 2025 that will count toward FMST credit. Click highlighted text for course description (if available). Check back frequently for updates and additions.

 

ENGL 212.01 The Cinema: History & Criticism* Glenn MW 2:00-3:15	ENGL 212.02 The Cinema: History & Criticism* Bruns TR 10:50-12:05	ENGL 212.03 The Cinema: History & Criticism* Bruns TR 12:15-1:30
ENGL 351 Studies in American Cinema Hollywood Genres* Bruns TR 1:40-2:55	ENGL 390 Special Topics in Film Film & Documentary Production*** Fennell T 4:00-6:45	AAST 335*** Race in American Film & Media Greene TR 12:15-1:40
GRST 472 Studies in German Cinema** Nenno TR 3:05-4:25 Taught in German	JWST 300.01 Jews & Comedy** Cappell W 1:00-3:45	LTIT 370 New Italian Cinema** DeLuca TR 1:40-2:55
LTPO 270 Brazilian Film** Moreira TR 9:25-10:40	THTR 350 Selected Topics in Comm Production Screenwriting*** Smallwood TR 10:50-12:05

 

* meets the requirement for Cluster 1 of the FMST minor
** meets the requirement for Cluster 2 of the FMST minor
*** meets the requirement for Cluster 3 of the FMST minor

Here’s a preliminary list of courses offered Summer 2025 that will count toward FMST credit. Check back frequently for updates and additions.

ENGL 212-01 Cinema: History and Criticism* Dr. Glenn Maymester, Online	ARST 240-01 Arab Cinema** Davidson Summer II Online.
CLAS 270-03 The Classics in Cinema** Dr. Zeiner-Carmichael Maymester, Online	LTRS 270-01 Studies in Russian Film** Dr. Erman Maymester, Online
PHIL 185-01 Philosophy on Film*** Dr. Baker Maymester, Online

* meets the requirement for Cluster 1 of the FMST minor
** meets the requirement for Cluster 2 of the FMST minor
*** meets the requirement for Cluster 3 of the FMST minor

By Anna Deason ’24, Former Film Club Officer

On the evening of April 6th, the College of Charleston Education Center Atrium looked unrecognizable. As if by magic, the lobby had been transformed Cinderella-style from a utilitarian study spot into a cozy, professional-looking event space. A fully- stocked catering table atop black table-cloth here, a step and repeat photo op there (complete with stage lights, red carpet, and a student photographer), and tasteful white, gold, and black decor throughout the room completed the venue look. Anyone who walked through the front doors that night would know right away they were in the right place for the College of Charleston Student Film Festival.

The CofC Student Film Festival is hosted each year by the Film Club and celebrates the creative filmmaking pursuits by students from CofC and Trident Technical College. “The Student Film Festival is the flagship event of the year for the Film Studies Program,” said CofC Film Studies Director Colleen Glenn. “Just as the student film club has become an important arm of the Film Studies minor, the student film festival has become our yearly celebration of cinema and student filmmakers at the College of Charleston.”

In recent years, the CofC Film Club has partnered with Queen Street Playhouse in downtown Charleston to host the festival, but this year, the festival was held in the Septima Clark Auditorium on CofC’s campus. The 2024 film line-up was comprised of eight different short films submitted by students across a variety of academic departments, from Biology Majors to Studio Art Majors.

This year, Film Studies Professors Colleen Glenn and John Bruns were proud to award the top three short film winners, as decided by judges Tim Fennell, Giovanna De Luca, and Jeffrey Youn. Third place was awarded to the short film A Town With Love in the Middle by Kate Pearson, second place to Backstage by CofC seniors Max Meyers and

Keller Hollingsworth, and first place to Mickey vs. the Passage of Time by CofC senior Bristol Barnes. Mickey also racked up an audience choice award, and Trident Tech student Ron Grant’s film Procrastination received Honorable Mention.

Film Club president Caroline Drinnon is in the unique position of not only getting to host this year’s festival, but also playing the lead role in the Film Club-produced short film, Mickey vs. the Passage of Time. Caroline told me, “As a creator, the festival

provides ample opportunities for learning and celebration of student success. The process of making the short film is clearly a strenuous task in itself with coordinating a team, writing a script, and finding the time to film it with whatever equipment you might have on hand.”

The festival, Caroline said, allows students to connect and form community not just as creators, but as audience members, as well. Plus, she said, “it’s a fun occasion to dress up and enjoy the art scene in Charleston without breaking the bank.” Certainly a tantalizing offer for any college student!

To close off the evening, Professors Glenn and Bruns commemorated all fourteen Film Studies graduating seniors onstage. For those graduating seniors, the Student Film Festival serves as their final send-off from the program prior to their graduation ceremonies. Dr. Glenn remarked, “The festival gives students an opportunity to submit and screen their work, and also gives our program a chance to honor and recognize our film studies students—those who simply love cinema and those who make movies, alike.”

With the Student Film Festival now going on its twentieth year, it’s difficult to ignore the question of legacy. For some, the film fest truly is the culmination of their time in Film Studies or in Film Club here at the College.

Caroline agrees, as she and other Film Studies Minors get to take all the concepts they’ve studied over the past few years and apply them, whether in the creation of a film or in the viewing experience of one.

Caroline reflected, “I think when it comes to the film festival, and to the club in general, it’s always the people and their creations that are the most memorable. The community that is built from being able to create something collaboratively and share it with friends, family, and peers is really unmatched.”

Both the Film Club and its festival have survived nearly two decades now; through changes in modern technology, four different College Presidents, and even a global pandemic, it seems as if the CofC Film Studies Program will always be ready to face whatever comes next. So, here’s to the future of the College of Charleston Student Film Festival.

Il Cinema Ritrovato On Tour is a new festival coming to Charleston! With roots in Bologna, Italy, this festival is dedicated to the history of cinema, screening classics, retrospectives and showcasing the latest restored films from labs and archives around the world. On March 20th and 21st, Il Cinema Ritrovato On Tour is screening four restored films: Sambizanga (1972), Assunta Spina (1915), The Last Emperor (1987), and Wings of Desire (1987)! With a valid CofC ID, tickets are free! Be sure to check out this incredible experience, coming to the Queen Street Playhouse in March!

 

The Charleston Jewish Film Festival returns to the Terrace Theater this weekend from February 22-25! Come attend a weekend of exciting contemporary Jewish cinema, including a documentary on the late and great Gene Wilder (Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles). The weekend will include discussions led by Film Studies professors as well as an in-person Q&A for Rabbi on the Block with director Brad Rothschild and star Rabbi Tamar Manasseh.

And don’t miss the commentary on Remembering Gene Wilder by Dr. John Bruns after the screening on Sat Feb 24!

You won’t want to miss this exciting opportunity, and student tickets are $11.

Checkout the full schedule and link to purchase tickets at https://www.terracetheater.com/jewish-filmfest/

It’s that time of year again, Charleston’s annual Nuovo Cinema Italiano Film Festival is back for its 17th year this weekend, November 2nd-5th! 

The annual film festival explores the latest and greatest contemporary Italian cinema, showcasing Italian culture and voices through some of the best modern Italian filmmakers. Through careful and exciting curation, this year is bound to be a great one with many amazing films from new and renowned Italian filmmakers and actors.

This year, visiting filmmakers include director Elia Moutamid and screenwriter Simone Brioni of the film Maka, and director Sophie Chiarello of the film Il Cerchio! Director of Good Morning Tel Aviv, Giovanna Gagliardo, will also be speaking about her film virtually.

Also, introductions for certain films will be made by a variety of College of Charleston faculty members including Colleen Glenn, Robert Sapp, Rebekah Compton, Lauren Ravalico, and Aimee Arias!

The event is free for CofC students and faculty, check out the full schedule of films + speakers here!

By Dan Colella ’20, Independent Filmmaker and Video Editor

During my time at The College of Charleston, I was fortunate to be the president of the CofC Film Club and the executive producer in the video department of CisternYard Media. In these leadership roles, I fostered collaboration and oversaw creative development, ensuring high-quality productions where students could gain knowledge on film and media storytelling. In the classroom, I was an English Major and a Film Studies Minor, two curriculums that aided me greatly in theoretical dissection and understanding of the creative process.

After graduating with my B.A., I moved cross-country to Los Angeles, where I began my MFA at top-ranked Loyola Marymount University in their School of Film and Television, a challenging but rewarding three-year program that includes tracks in Film & TV Production, Writing for the Screen, and Writing & Producing for Television. Having been accepted into the Film & TV production track, I spent my first three semesters learning all aspects of filmmaking from screenwriting to directing, cinematography, and sound and film editing, while also creating two films during my first and second years. My first-year film, Refraction, was an official selection of the Burbank International Film Festival and Silicon Beach Film Festival which screened at the famous TCL Chinese Theatres. After my third semester, I chose to specialize in Directing Fiction and spent my last three semesters writing, producing, and editing my thesis film. P.E. is a ten-minute short film about a heavy-set teenager who braves the nightmare of P.E. swim class. The film is currently on its festival run and includes one current student and two CofC alumni, Mary Pumper ’18, who plays Ms. Holmes, the gym teacher, Leanna Narcho ’19, the production designer, and the lead, Ben, played by Patrick Whiteside (CofC ’26).

Some of my additional coursework included an Advanced Directing Seminar, Advanced Production – Documentary (with Oscar-winning Documentarian Daniel Junge), Film & TV Development, Feature Screenwriting, and Developing & Selling Digital Content.

While at LMU, I continued my Film Studies education by taking courses in International Film and learning and studying the intersection between Narrative and Documentary films (Docu-Fictions). Although LMU fostered my knowledge of Film/TV production, the courses I took in CofC’s Film Studies program prepared me with the theoretical knowledge to look beyond the surface of the practical work I was making. Understanding subtext and what a filmmaker is trying to say through blocking, framing, editing choices, etc. are what made me a well-rounded filmmaker.

Equipped with my MFA, I have since moved back to the east coast and will be working in Film Development at FirstGen Content, an entertainment finance and production company whose development division is headed by Mollye Asher, the Oscar-winning Producer of Nomadland. Outside of FirstGen, I am working as a freelance videographer/editor while finishing post-production on my Vietnam Documentary centered around my great-uncle, 1LT. Howard Jon Schnabolk, who sacrificed himself to save his fellow soldiers. The film is set to be completed by the end of 2023 with a festival run set for 2024.

 

By William Swinbank

This summer I had the opportunity to work as a summer intern for Fourward, a leading talent company in Los Angeles that specializes in music, film and TV, and venture capital. It was a perfect opportunity as it allowed me to see so many different aspects of the entertainment industry as well as a look into the business world.

As a summer intern I did a wide variety of tasks. Every day was a different day, where sometimes I was sitting in on meetings with potential investors for venture capital funds, reading scripts for clients, or attending an album release for an artist a part of Fourward. Of course it wasn’t all fun–I had plenty of errands and office work to do, but it was hard to complain while working in Beverly Hills! On top of that, everyone I worked with from the executive assistant to the CEO, Will Ward, were incredibly kind. Plus they are both CofC alumni.

One of my favorite days at work was when the venture arm of Fourward hosted an event in a gorgeous house in Beverly Hills overlooking downtown LA. Although I was on the clock, I met big film executives, heard from successful businessmen, and get advice from those that are doing exactly what I aspire to do one day. It felt like I got to make the kinds of connections that everyone in filmmaking always talks about. The entire internship was a great experience that has motivated me to stay on the path towards a career in film.

By Max Meyers

It’s a Friday night after a long week of school or work. Exhausted from the week but eager for the weekend, you decide that kicking back with a movie is the best plan for the evening. Maybe you open Netflix and scroll through endless categories of suggestions. Or how about you go and find an old Blu-ray or DVD of one of your favorite movies from your childhood? Or perhaps you’re still feeling up for hitting the movie theaters, catching the newest and most exciting films on the big silver screen. But have you ever wondered to yourself: after the film is made, how did that movie make its way from the filmmaker and production team to that DVD or Netflix or movie theater? Sure, big-budget studios like Disney and Warner Bros. have no problem getting that film into theaters across the globe or onto their personally-owned and wide-spread streaming platforms, but what about the small indie film looking for its big break into the film scene? That’s where film distribution companies come in.

This summer, I’ve been working as a part-time intern for Oscilloscope Laboratories, a small, independent-focused film distribution company based in Brooklyn, New York, and their primary objective is the answer to that question: film distribution. They’re one of the many companies that act as a bridge between a movie and its audiences. Oscilloscope Laboratories has been around for about 15 years now, and you may have heard of a few of their films: Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller’s We Need to Talk About Kevin; Kelly Reichardt’s early gem Wendy and Lucy starring Michelle Williams; Denis Villeneuve’s (director of Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, and Dune) return to filmmaking in 2009 with Polytechnique; the mind-bending sci-fi thriller Coherence; the technicolor-inspired vision that is The Love Witch; Pakistan’s 2022 submission to the Academy Awards Joyland (which was shortlisted but not nominated); and the newly acquired Daisy Ridley Sundance film Sometimes I Think About Dying. Those are just a few of their catalog numbering to over 150 films, with plenty more on the way.

There are a few elements of film distribution that I have learned over the course of the summer. One area is acquisitions, which involves all things related towards finding films for Oscilloscope to license and acquire in their catalog. My main work helping with acquisitions has consisted of festival research to break down all films showing at upcoming film festivals, and watch screeners of new unreleased films to provide coverage for the acquisitions head and ultimately give my feedback and thoughts on the film. The feedback for coverage is more than just personal opinion about whether it is a good film. It is also about the film’s marketability and ability to make profits. At the end of the day, Oscilloscope needs to make money, so finding a film with tangible markets and audiences is an important part of acquisitions. There may be a fantastic movie that just doesn’t have great marketability for Oscilloscope.

A lot of my other tasks involved working on films Oscilloscope has already acquired, and either are currently releasing, or plans to release in the near future. Helping out with marketing and outreach for films was a big part of the job, too. One recurring marketing task is working on marketing research to discover places of outreach and engagement where that film would be screening. Typically, this meant finding places and organizations with relation to the film’s theme or audiences near an LA or NYC theater where the film was premiering at. Additionally, on the marketing side, I helped with creating or looking over marketing materials and posters for upcoming releases. A few currently upcoming films I researched are Joyland, Moon Garden, Amanda, Love Life, Piaffe, CatVideoFest 2023, Once Within A Time, and a few unannounced films as well.

Additionally, I work on tasks related to the rest of Oscilloscope’s catalog. I completed a lot of work with Oscilloscope’s films streaming on Kanopy, a streaming service free to College of Charleston students (and almost all of Oscilloscope’s films are on Kanopy)! My work with Kanopy includes a project regarding Oscilloscope’s films on Kanopy at various public libraries around the country, as well as a lot of research into Kanopy licenses of Oscilloscope films resulting in a program that’ll involve college universities around the country. Another task related to Oscilloscope’s catalog that I consistently work on is what is called Metadata. Metadata is essentially a spreadsheet filled out that gives streaming services the right information when licensing Oscilloscope films. A few services I completed Metadata for were Pluto, Xbox, Google, and Kanopy. Additionally, I have access to Oscilloscope’s Letterboxd page and work on posting various press breaks about their films as well as musings about various film-related topics. I also make Tik Toks for their Tik Tok account, join various team meetings with the staff over Zoom, and do some work regarding Oscilloscope’s newly released Celluloid Card Game, which is a ton of fun to play and available on their store!

A project I found particularly fun and exciting is what’s called chaptering. To my delight, Oscilloscope values and releases Blu-rays and DVDs for their films. One task I got to work on for an upcoming Blu-ray/DVD release was essentially watching that film and creating the chapters for the film, the ones you’d find when going to the “scene selection” space on a Blu-ray or DVD. As an avid Blu-ray collector myself, this task had me nerding out and was such a treat and honor to be a part of. 

Overall, this has been a tremendously fulfilling experience. I was first introduced to the Oscilloscope team last summer when I completed an internship with Intuit Mailchimp doing Film Programming work for their streaming service Mailchimp Presents. Being able to reconnect and work for them a year later has been such a rewarding experience. My career interest is definitely in the film industry, and this has been such a great introduction into that world through the lens of film distribution. This internship–and everything I’ve taken part in at CofC with Film Studies and the Film Club– has affirmed that working with film is what I want to do in life. I’ve loved working for Oscilloscope Laboratories and the small but mighty team that runs it, and definitely hope to cross paths with them again in the future, one way or another!

With the Spring 2023 semester approaching, let’s look back at CofC Film Club during the Fall 2022 semester!! We watched a total of 13 films this semester. Some highlights included: watching Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy (2003) on film club member Matthew Norton-Baker’s region-free Blu-ray player (the only way to watch the film), our collaboration with CofC PRISM watching My Own Private Idaho (1991), our Halloween Double feature of Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998) and John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), celebrating Día de los Muertos with CofC Hispanic Latino Club by watching the 2017 pixar film Coco with (hot) cocoa, and closing out the semester with Knives Out (2019) just in time for the sequel that released this winter!

In addition to our two collabs and Halloween Double Feature, some of the most notable events included a screenwriting workshop led by PURE Theatre co-founder and CofC faculty alum Rodney Rogers, our return to Trident Technical College for a filmmaking workshop led by Tim Fennell, our camera workshop led by Film Club treasurer Keller Hollingsworth, and the Film Studies Minor Open House!

We also hosted our annual screenwriting competition, with our amazing faculty judges this year being Emily Rosko, Michael Smallwood, and Nancy Nenno. We’re excited to begin production as a club on the winning film as our official submission to the Spring student film festival! Here are the winners they ranked:

1. “Roses” – Natalie Dixon (’26)
2. “The Fast Fall” – Peyton Brotzman (’23)
3. “Post Mortem” – Anna Deason (’24)

What’s on the horizon for Film Club in the new year? Get excited for the biggest event of the year for us, our annual Student Film Festival, officially taking place on Saturday, April 8th, at the Queen Street Playhouse! More details to come later on how you can submit a film (any CofC or Trident Tech students are welcome to submit), as well as event info for general attendees). For general club meetings, we’re excited to kickoff the year with some movie trivia on Wednesday 1/11 to ease into the first day of the semester. And get excited for our first official screening on 1/18 (film TBA)! Thanks for a great 2022 and we’re excited to do some amazing things this semester!