A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.
SAIC faculty member Anahita Ghazvinizadeh.

Anahita Ghazvinizadeh

Assistant Professor

Contact

Bio

Education: BFA, 2011, Tehran University of Art; MFA, 2013, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Exhibitions/Screenings: Cannes Film Festival; Locarno Film Festival; Torino Film Festival; BFI Flare, London; Busan International Film Festival; Berlin Feminist Film Week; Chicago International Film Festival; Melbourne International Film Festival; Anthology Film Archive, New York; Museum of Contemporary Arts, Busan. Publications: SAAN, Iranian Literary Quarterly; MAJALEH FILM, Iranian Film Review Monthly. Awards: Cinéfondation First Prize, Cannes Film Festival; Silver Hugo, Chicago International Film Festival; Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film; Doha Film Institute Grant; Cinereach Fellowship; IWC Filmmaker Award, Honorable Mention, Tribeca Film Institute.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

What possibilities does filmic language offer for representing the inner lives and interior states of characters/human-subjects on screen? This course focuses on cinematic works that depict the subjectivities and mental states of their characters in unconventional, intimate, and poetic manners. Point-of-view (POV), point-of-audition (POA), close-ups, voice-over, characterization, performance style and depiction of dreams are among the cinematic elements and concepts that will be critically explored and defamiliarized throughout the course. Screenings and close study of works by filmmakers such as Lynne Ramsay, Barbara Loden, Lucrecia Martel, Todd Haynes, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, ildikó enyedi, Kathleen Collins, Márta Mészáros, Elem Klimov and Krzysztof Kie¿lowski will be accompanied by scholarly and personal essays and readings.

Class Number

2412

Credits

3

Description

This course introduces students to the basic elements of a screenplay, including format, terminology, exposition, characterization, dialogue, voice-over, adaptation, and variations on the three-act structure. Weekly meetings feature a brief lecture, screenings of scenes from films, extended discussion, and assorted readings of class assignments. This is primarily a writing class, with students required to write a four-to-five page weekly assignment related to the script topic of the week.

Class Number

1478

Credits

3

Description

This course is a production class designed for students interested in alternative modes of narrative production in film and Video. Through workshops on writing, acting, and directing, students learn to work with actors, dialogue, and alternative narrative structures. Students apply the concepts covered in class to their selected projects, from production through editing. Throughout the course, a wide range of narrative films utilizing experimental modes of production are screened. Technical issues are covered in cinematography workshops, but it is assumed that students have a solid technical grounding in their medium of choice. Though the body of this class focuses on film and video production, the class is also appropriate for students working in performance and sound.

Class Number

1451

Credits

3

Description

This Professional Practice course is designed for students with practical experience and understanding of the language and process of fiction, non-fiction, hybrid or experimental film production, and who would like to prepare themselves for professional survival and growth as emerging filmmakers outside of school. The topics covered at the class will include: producing project proposals for grants, fellowships and labs; learning about local, national and international film communities, networks and institutions; discussing festivals and other conventional or DIY distribution models; learning about programming and writing about film as career paths; and strategies for building film communities and production teams such as companies and collectives.
We will watch and discuss works by notable SAIC alumni such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and will have in-person and virtual visits and discussions with local and global filmmakers, programmers, distributors, centers and platforms. Selected successful recent film projects will be discussed as case studies; we will research the life of each project from ideation to fund-raising, production and distribution.
Students will practice professional development by working around one of their own past or in-progress film projects and producing a body of documents around it, including a proposal for a grant or a lab, an artist/director statement, visual treatment and mood-board, and a written festival and distribution plan.

Class Number

2391

Credits

3

Description

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Class Number

2472

Credits

3 - 6

Description

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Class Number

1997

Credits

3 - 6