BA, Bennington College. MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. An internationally award-winning filmmaker, educator, and 2021 Creative Capital Awardee, Rosskam’s most recent feature-length documentary, Paternal Rites (2018), premiered at MoMA’s Doc Fortnight and went on to win several festival awards. Rosskam is also the director of Dance, Dance, Evolution (2019), Something to Cry About (2018), Thick Relations (2012), against a trans narrative (2009), and transparent (2005). His work has been screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Art Boston, the British Film Institute, Arsenal Berlin, Anthology Film Archives, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, the Queens Museum of Art, the Museum of Moving Images, and hundreds of film festivals worldwide. He has participated in residencies at Yaddo, ISSUE Project Room, Marble House, PLAYA, and ACRE. He is currently Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at University of Maryland Baltimore County. SLC, 2021–
Previous Courses
Filmmaking and Moving Image Arts
Research as Practice: Developing the Documentary
Open, Seminar—Fall
In this course, students will learn about the preproduction process for documentary filmmaking through exercises in idea generation, research, proposal writing, fundraising, impact campaigns, team building, and distribution. The broader goal is to develop each student’s unique voice while exploring issues of aesthetics, ethics and responsibility, experimentation, and the current sociocultural context of nonfiction film production. The majority of the semester will be spent on assignments to help each student conceptualize and develop a documentary idea. Over the past decade, documentary has experienced a creative explosion alongside an expansion of its potential for commercial success. Through readings, screenings, and class discussions, we will consider the limitless possibilities of nonfiction filmmaking in regard to style, structure, tone, and subject matter. In addition to in-class screenings and reading assignments, students will receive individual screening and reading lists tailored to their projects.
Faculty
Jules Rosskam