Guest Filmmaker Jay Craven

Award-winning independent filmmaker Jay Craven will visit Simon’s Rock for a workshop and information session at 5:30pm, Thursday, November 5^th in the Lecture Center.  The session will provide a chance for students to discuss the current work of independent filmmaking in the United States and to exchange thoughts on issues of acting, directing, producing, financing, and distribution of narrative and documentary films. Craven will also show clips from his films.

Craven will discuss his upcoming session of Movies from Marlboro, where 30 students from multiple colleges come together for a film intensive semester away at Marlboro College in southern Vermont. Students start the winter/spring semester with a week at the Sundance Film Festival where they see and discuss films, meet film industry people, and navigate the complex and exhilarating world of the nation’s largest annual film event.

Students then return to Marlboro for seven weeks of literature study, cinema studies, screenwriting practice, acting and directing seminars, student filmmaking, visiting artists, and study, work, and preparation in the areas of camera/lights/ sound, production management, production design, costume design, editing, and direct cinema documentary production. The goal of this seven-week intensive is to fully immerse students into the characters, story, and world of the screenplay they will produce and prepare for production.  Following this time, 20 professionals will mentor and collaborate with the students for the production of an ambitious narrative feature film for national release. 

The film slated for the coming semester will be based on Craig Nova’s novel, Wetware, a noir thriller set in the near future that Washington Post critic Michael Dirda called, “A haunting, heart-stoppingly exciting, brilliantly structured novel of suspense, ideas, and subtle characterization.” Previous films produced in the program include Northern Borders, starring Academy Award nominees Bruce Dern and Genevieve Bujold and Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick (Moonrise Kingdom, Before Midnight) and Peter and John, starring Jacqueline Bisset, Christian Coulson (Harry Potter: Chamber of Secrets) and Diane Guerrero (Orange is the New Black).

Craven has directed seven feature films, four documentaries, and an Emmy-winning regional comedy series for public television. His films have played 73 international festivals, including Sundance, South By Southwest, and AFI:Fest. Special screenings include Lincoln Center, The Smithsonian, Harvard Film Archives, La Cinematheque Francaise, The Constitutional Court of Johannesburg, La Cinemateca Nacional de Venezuela, and Beijing Normal University.