Earlier this semester, students taking the Archival Imagination: Found Footage Filmmaking course gathered in the Hope L. and John L. Furth Archives Reading Room at the Barnard Archives to begin curating material for the films they will create as part of their classwork. Among the media they screened was a silent black-and-white film of the Barnard campus, shot in 1935. It features scenes of College leaders, faculty, and students. In one section, the camera points to a sign that reads “Barnard Camp,” from when the College owned and operated a camp in Ossining, New York, for student field trips. Students appear happy and relaxed as they gather to build a fire. These scenes from another time and of another Barnard riveted the current class.
“Let’s think about these shots,” said instructor Courtney Stephens. “How might you tell your own story?”
Stephens is one of fall 2024’s Artemis Rising Foundation Filmmaker Fellows and a celebrated documentary filmmaker. Among her credits is the essay feature Terra Femme, composed of amateur travel footage shot by women in the early 20th century, which was a New York Times Critic’s Pick in 2022. In class, students are studying Barnard’s deep archive of film, photos, documents, and content from other archives to make personal films.
“It’s a really exploratory class,” Stephens explained, “because you’re working with materials that already exist but attempting to tease things out of the material that are latent but could be used to tell other kinds of stories: personal, historical, conceptual.” She designed the course based on her unique artistic process, which was the kind of professional expertise the Artemis Rising program intended to bring to Barnard classrooms.
“The Artemis Rising Foundation Filmmaker Fellowship Program presents an incredible opportunity to bring working filmmakers and film professionals to campus to share their insights and expertise with our students,” said Victoria Lesourd, the Athena Center for Leadership’s chief of staff.
In 2022, the Athena Center launched the Artemis Rising Foundation Filmmaker Fellowship (ARFF) Program in partnership with Barnard’s film program. Funded through a $3 million donation from film producer and philanthropist Regina K. Scully’s Artemis Rising Foundation — also the founding sponsor of the Athena Film Festival — the fellowship program invites industry practitioners to teach at the College every semester. In this way, the ARFF program brings experts who are working throughout the industry to campus to share their professional knowledge with Barnard students interested in learning more about film.
“These Fellows bring firsthand industry knowledge that helps students better understand the ever-evolving filmmaking landscape, and they also represent valuable networking opportunities for students thinking about filmmaking as a career,” said Lesourd.
Katherine Kuwahara ’25, a neuroscience and human rights major, is taking Stephens’s class this semester. “I thought this was a really unique opportunity to take a course taught by a current filmmaker. I was also super intrigued by the course’s archival focus,” said Kuwahara.
Judith Gottlieb ’25, an art history and visual arts major, was also drawn to Stephens’s film course. “I got really excited to learn more editing techniques through this historical and nostalgic film,” she said.
In addition to Stephens’s course, students also had the opportunity to learn from Emmy Award-winning documentary Executive Producer Adriana Banta ’15. Banta taught a four-part mini-course entitled Nonfiction Independent Feature-Length & Series Executive Producing.
“I was so thrilled to see the level of attention and support being brought to filmmaking at Barnard,” said Banta. “I loved my time at Barnard, where I learned from remarkable film professors, including Professors Richard Peña, James Schamus, and Annette Insdorf, with whom I have remained in touch. Annette, in particular, encouraged me to apply to ARFF, for which I am very grateful. While the existing film program at Barnard and Columbia is already so robust, if I were a student now, I would love a course that also offered a practical orientation to augment the incredible and more rigorous education that is already being offered.”
The course Banta taught was focused on executive producing for nonfiction projects and followed the life cycle of the filmmaking process, from sourcing to sales, and featured guest speakers with various roles. On the first day of class, a full roster of students filed into the Athena CoLab as Banta outlined the scope of the course and introduced the first guest speaker. The Academy Award-winning documentary director of O.J.: Made in America, Ezra Edelman, appeared on the screen via Zoom. He offered a behind-the-scenes perspective of the creative and collaborative work of bringing nonfiction stories to the screen.
“Ezra has a really strong point of view and a consistent style and approach,” said Banta. “I thought it would be great for students to hear from a filmmaker who really knows their own process.”
Banta’s journey is also a master class in navigating the film industry. At Barnard, she majored in film studies and minored in economics, a powerful combination for an executive producer when financing and creating films. While still an undergraduate, Banta interned at A24, Saturday Night Live, and CAA, which led her to form relationships that helped to propel her career forward. After years of working in the film industry at companies such as 30West and WME, Banta is stepping out on her own as an independent producer.
“I have a full slate of projects, with a variety of different filmmakers, producers, and companies, so it’s busy,” said Banta. “It’s a lot of different things, but each one is self-designed and with creatives that I have direct relationships with, and that’s pretty special, and I feel very grateful for that.”
"Filmmaking is a deeply collaborative art form,” said visiting professor of professional practice in film studies Meg McLagan. She is the chair of the Artemis Rising Foundation Filmmaker Fellowship Committee, composed of faculty from Barnard and Columbia and select staff. Each year, the committee reviews the pool of fellowship applicants and presents finalists to the provost, who officially approves the Fellows’ selection.
“It is one thing to learn how to operate film equipment and editing software but quite another to be exposed to how the film industry operates as a social space, one built on ongoing professional relationships and creative dialogue,” said McLagan. “Artemis Fellows Courtney Stephens and Adriana Banta, each in their way, have modeled these principles through their teaching this fall. The opportunity to experience these best practices in the classroom is invaluable.”
Banta said she hopes students in her class feel inspired to pursue work in film. “I asked them who was interested in being a producer, and nearly everyone raised their hands!” she said. “We’ve been having sidebar conversations about career navigating, and that’s been wonderful.”
