A Message from the Chair
On behalf of my colleagues in the Film Division of the Columbia University School of the Arts, I welcome you to the Film Division’s showcase of new student work for 2002. We call this event our Film Festival, even though the term is increasingly problematic. This year, we devote three of the festival’s eight nights to readings from screenplays. Also, continuing a trend, an increasing number of students have chosen to work in digital video instead of film. What will we call the festival when two-thirds of the screenings are videos and the rest are in some other digital format? (Indeed, what will we call the Film Division itself?) Perhaps we’ll revert to a century-old term which predates both film and movies but can serve us perfectly in the digital age: moving pictures. Stay tuned. Regardless of the medium or the term used to describe it, the intent of the work is to create a world, to tell a story through moving images and sound. The Columbia "X" Division is training new generations to move audiences–which is the point of it all.

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