Young Critics Workshop 2022

I’m an Iranian cinephile, writer, filmmaker, and a current MFA candidate in Film and Media Arts at Temple University. My work, encompassing experimental, narrative, and documentary modes, deals directly with the cinema itself, exploring the relationship between the viewer and the screen while engaging with the works of filmmakers as diverse as Stan Brakhage, Orson Welles, Kamran Shirdel, and Malcolm Le Grice. My critical writings and translations have appeared both in Farsi and English in publications like photogénie, Filmkhaneh, and Film Matters, focusing on filmmakers such as Sohrab Shahid Saless and Straub-Huillet among others.

I’m a Romanian film critic and filmmaker, currently finishing my MA in film studies at UNATC in Bucharest. I have previously graduated with a degree in film direction and have also studied art history. I write for Romanian film magazines Acoperisul de sticla and Films in Frame and, at present, I am also working on an experimental documentary about a Romanian radio station in the 90s. My greatest passions are Japanese New Wave cinema, music videos and Irish post-punk bands.

I am an Italian cinephile currently living in Turin and have recently completed an MA in film and media studies. I occasionally write about movies, particularly American movies and even more particularly westerns (I wrote a thesis on the cinematic representations of Wyatt Earp).

I’m a Belgian student currently finishing my Master’s degree in Theatre, Film and Literature at the University of Antwerp. After secondary school I first attended film school in Brussels, but soon realized that I was not ready (yet) to make my own films, so I decided to pursue a more academic course. Even though I love film, I also love the outdoors. And if you can’t find me in the woods or in the cinema, you can probably find me behind the bar of the café where I work in my hometown.

I’m a New York born, Chicago based studio cameraperson for Bally Sports/Stadium, who turns to criticism and film writing as a respite from work’s drudgery. I graduated from Northwestern University in 2021 with a degree in Film Production, with notable accomplishments including a B- for a paper on In a Lonely Place for being “too enthusiastic about Nicholas Ray”. I find strength in the films of John Ford and Maurice Pialat, as well as in his fandom of the New York Knicks.