TFT Newsletter — December 2021

December 2021

Patrice Dufour

Season’s Greetings

From all of us here at UCLA TFT to all of you, our wonderful coalition of alumni, supporters, faculty, staff, students and friends, we wish you the very best this holiday season. You are the lifeblood of our community, and we are so grateful for and proud of all you do. Celebrate safely and well!

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Transforming Hollywood 9

Dec. 3: UCLA TFT Professor Denise Mann and USC Professor Henry Jenkins co-host this free, all-day conference (in person and online) that looks at how international co-productions are fueling the exploding popularity of streaming television in the United States.
RSVP

Go Arts UCLA

Check out UCLA’s artistic offerings on the Go Arts UCLA website, which offers one-stop shopping for information about upcoming screenings, exhibitions, workshops and talks, in person and online.

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“El Carrito”

IN THE NEWS

The memoir Incorrigible, written by Ron Enfield (BA ’66), was published earlier this year.

Alumnus Alex Gibney will direct the Vietnam War-set thriller Two Wolves, starring Viggo Mortensen and Caleb Landry Jones.

Joanna Jones (BA ’10), currently portraying Eliza Schuyler Hamilton in the Los Angeles production of Hamilton, shared her experiences with TFT musical theater students on Nov. 4.

Ann Kaneko’s (MFA ’98) Manzanar Diverted screened at the Los Angeles Historic Park on Nov. 4, kicking off Our Stories/Our Water/Our Future, a series of local screenings across Los Angeles, in collaboration with the Our Water L.A. coalition.

Rachel Kaiulani Kennealy (BA ’19) is the new director of education at El Campanil Theatre in Antioch.

BAFTA’s Newcomers Program in Los Angeles has inducted screenwriters Divija Natarajan (MFA ’21) and Jennifer Zhao (MFA ’21) into the four-year talent initiative. Yashna Malhotra (MFA ’20) is in her second year; Catherine Wignall (MFA ’19) is in her third year of the program.

Graduate student Zahida Pirani’s film El Carrito premiered at AFI Fest on Nov. 13.

9th Circuit Cowboy: The Long, Good Fight of Judge Harry Pregerson, the latest film from Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Terry Sanders (BA ’54, MFA ’67), screened at the UCLA School of Law on Oct. 20.

Professor Amy Villarejo is the co-editor, with Ron Gregg, of the just-published Oxford Handbook to Queer Cinema (Oxford University Press), and the third edition of her book Film Studies: The Basics, has been released by Routledge.

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IN MEMORIAM

David Chute, a veteran film critic and staff writer at UCLA TFT from 2004-2013, passed away on Nov. 8. He was 71.

Professor Emeritus William Tom Wheatley, an accomplished theater actor who taught acting and directing at TFT from 1973 to 1992, died at his home in San Diego on Oct. 19. He was 89.

Colin Young (MA ’58), who was the chair of the film division in the Department of Theater Arts

in the mid-1960s, and later the founding director of the UK’s National Film and Television School, passed away on Nov. 27. He was 94.

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PARTING SHOT

Thirty years after they first met as Critical Studies majors at UCLA, five alumni gathered at TFT for a self-organized reunion on Aug. 21. “We had a great day reminiscing!” says Pixar producer Katherine Sarafian (MA ’93). She was joined by Luisela Alvaray (MA ’93, Ph.D. ’04), professor, DePaul University; Gilberto Blasini (MA ’93, Ph.D. ’02), professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee;
Anna Everett (MA ’93), professor, UC Santa Barbara; and L.S. Kim (MA ’93, Ph.D. ’97), associate professor, UC Santa Cruz. Go Bruins!