Film Selection (in presentation order):
Awaken /「 」
Chloe Rong, Grace Li (Haverford College)
A documentary born from our transnational experiences as Chinese-speaking women during the pandemic, reclaiming memories silenced by official narratives. Blending personal archives, digital fragments, and communal voices, the film bears witness to a history made to disappear—haunting, unresolved, and resistant to closure. We ask: what if we simply let the fragments speak?
Sukkat Shlomekha: A Shelter of Peace
Mariama Regaignon (Bryn Mawr College)
Jewish students at Bryn Mawr and Haverford come together to practice anti-Zionist Jewish ritual as part of the broader student movement for Palestine.
The Freest Days
Yuqin Wu (Haverford College)
“After Grandpa passed away, Grandma said the house felt empty, so she invited me to stay with her when I came back to Shanghai. In the midst of lives around her coming and going, I saw her uncover new meanings in her past. Meanwhile, returning to a life of solitude after so many years, she seemed to find a precious sense of self-sufficiency and freedom.”
Ignited
Maya Estrera (Swarthmore College)
Ignited is a peaceful tale that follows Devyn and Luna as they navigate the woods and the beginnings of their relationship. Relying on nature and an old camcorder to ease the tension, Devyn begins to open up to Luna. Under the cover of the trees, the two discover themselves and what it means to love.
Somewhere By the Sea 我要去海边
Tianyi Zhang, Yuqin Wu (Bryn Mawr College)
Fed up with labor-capital relations, a college student-slash-Marxist wannabe heads to the coast to quit capitalism while their skeptical friend tags along.
Blue’s Correspondence
Laura Chung (Bryn Mawr College)
Blue’s Correspondence interrogates the possibility of self-representation within the inescapable framework of performance—whether mediated through the camera, the gaze of another, or one’s own perception. Collaging staged and observational footage, the film uses stop-motion, color manipulation, and experimental cinematography to examine the slippages between reflection, memory, and reality. Rejecting the pursuit of objectivity, it embraces the fractured nature of selfhood: each representation a fragment, each fragment a kind of truth.
A Labor of Love: The Calia Family Sauce
Isabella Otterbein (Haverford College)
This film honors a generations-old family tomato sauce recipe, which has been recreated once again in a college kitchen. It explores how tradition, care, and memory live on through food and the people we share it with.
Alien in the Mountain
Thomas Chen (Swarthmore College)
Overwhelmed by the mundane life in the office, an international student tries to find aliens in the mountain.
Won For The Ladies
Samantha Kopkowski (Bryn Mawr College)
Instead of a traditional narrative, the film is an arrangement of comic, heartfelt, and often-chaotic moments observed during the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025. Alongside supplementary captions, images, and archival clips, the film primarily incorporates diaristic Mini-Dv footage from a vintage camcorder and explores the expressive potential of its glitchy sound and visuals as in-camera effects. It follows a group of college girls and the filmmaker herself as they navigate daily life in a country on the verge of a national nervous breakdown.
Days Of Our College Lives
Dilahan Cavusoglu (Swarthmore College)
Two college sweethearts, Fiona and Todd, register into the same Astronomy course but (oh no!) different lab groups. In her lab group, Fiona is paired with Jared, whom she starts showing interest in. Drama ensues as emotions swirl in this episode of acclaimed soap opera “Days Of Our College Lives.”
