Stamps Student Work Featured at 63rd Annual Ann Arbor Film Festival
The Stamps School of Art & Design and the Ann Arbor Film Festival (AAFF) have shared a collaborative partnership for decades. From screening new films by faculty, alums, and students to creating opportunities for students to be involved, the long-standing tradition continues with the 63rd annual festival, which takes place March 25 – 30 at the Michigan Theater.
Trailers created by Stamps students Grant Emenheiser, Julia Flatley, Jaden Serafin, and Abby Watters have been selected for screening during the AAFF, and will be shown at the Michigan Theater throughout the festival. The students produced the work under the guidance of Stamps Lecturer Avery Lawrence in their Fall 2024 Experimental Animation class; they were required to include the festival and sponsors’ logos in their projects, but were given complete artistic freedom to design their 30 second spot.
“I was impressed with how the students in ‘Experimental Animation’ navigated the challenges of this amazing opportunity!” Lawrence said. “Collaborating with such a prestigious client and having such an open-ended brief pushed each student to their conceptual, technological, and emotional limits. In the end, eleven artists made a suite of refreshing animations that surprised, entertained, and charmed through their various modes of experimentation.”
Lawrence also selected additional student work to be presented at U‑M’s North Quad Space 2435 as part of the festival’s New Voices series. New Voices will feature student film and animation work from regional schools, including work by the following Stamps students:
Alex Coe — “We Don’t Believe You”
Alex Nguyen — “Suped Up Slug”
Annelie Zissis — “Squirrelly’s Daily ‘Michigan’ Routine”
Bailey Newsome — “Too Many Ducks”
Ben Black — “Ocular Hazard”
Breanna Zaborowski — “Animated Excerpt From Betty’s Summer Vacation”
Damien Richardson — “Shape Adventure”
Elisa Gasser — “A Story from The Toy Box”
Grace Biebel — “Making Ketchup” and “A Conversation”
Hilary Kohtz — “Fishing is Hard” and “Weightlessness”
Jalen Nieto — “The Great Nimbus Brody”
Keegan Roberts — “Hector Down the Mountain”
Leila Kerr — “Play”
Michelle Peng — “tutu & vivi” and “who cares?”
Nala White — “When You’re Not Playing”
Oliver Lee St Cyr — “Sympathy for a Brain Eating Amoeba”
Olivia Glynn — “Eulogy for Lieutenant Tangent”
Shafiq Muqit — “Meet the Goof Himself” and “Maybe I’m Having a Breakdown”
Shelby Hernandez-Olguin — “The Buddies”
Veronica Weinberg — “Chomp” and “A Soldier’s Tale”
The Ann Arbor Film Festival is the oldest avant-garde and experimental film festival in North America, founded in 1963 by George Manupelli, who served as associate professor of art at the University of Michigan’s School of Art (now Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design) from 1962 – 1972. Internationally recognized as a première forum for independent filmmakers, each year’s festival engages audiences with films from around the world in all lengths and genres, including experimental, animation, documentary, fiction, and performance-based works. Through its history, the festival has presented early work by many influential artists, including Kenneth Anger, Brian De Palma, Agnes Varda, Andy Warhol, Gus Van Sant, Barbara Hammer, George Lucas, Les Blank, Matthew Buckingham, and James Benning.
Learn more about the 63rd Annual Ann Arbor Film Festival and view the full schedule of events: aafilmfest.org