Cinema Pacific at UO

This May the University of Oregon will host the first annual Cinema Pacific festival.

The festival will showcase films and new media from Pacific-bordering countries and will focus on a different country each year. This year Korea will be featured.

The festival will also include the Adrenaline Film Project, in which 10-15 groups of students and community members will have 72 hours to complete short films under the guidance of professional filmmakers. The completed projects will be shown at the end of the festival and will compete for awards.

Festival Director Richard Herskowitz, who teaches Arts and Administration at U of O, previously organized the Virginia Film Festival before moving to Oregon.

The festival runs from May 5th through the 9th around Eugene and online. For more information visit the Cinema Pacific Web site or contact the administrators at cinemapacific@uoregon.edu.

New UO Cinema Studies Program

This winter the University of Oregon introduced its new interdisciplinary Cinema Studies program.

The program is the first of its kind in the state and is already in high demand with about ninety students declaring the major during its first term. Faculty expected to have only about thirty students by this time.

Program Director Kathleen Karlyn says the new major is unique because it has the resources of a research institution and is, she explains "deeply steeped in training in the liberal arts," but also includes production.

Karlyn also says the program will have a strong focus on international cinema.

"We are on the Pacific Rim and we have particular strengths in Asian Cinema, so we are taking full advantage of that. So we are drawing on our faculty... to really put a distinctly Oregon spin on our program," she explains.

The university is continuing to offer a certificate in Cinema Studies, but may be replacing it with a minor in the near future.

In addition to many new courses in both theory and production, the new program has also brought to the university a new computer lab with 24 Mac computers equipped with Final Cut Pro editing software, and new production equipment such as high definition digital video cameras that students can check out.

Cinema Studies courses being offered this spring include Media and Society; History of the Motion Picture Part 3 (1960s to present);Women, Minorities, and the Media; Intro to Animation; Film Noir and Asia; Tokyo Cyberpunk; Dramatic Screenwriting; Thai Society through Film; Comedy in Media; Documentary Production; Political Economy of Media; Female Stars; and more. The course schedule can be viewed online (the subject abbreviation is CINE). Spring term registration ends April 7th. Classes begin March 29th.

To learn more visit the program's Web site, drop by the program's office on the second floor of Knight Library.