Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson receives documentary filmmaking award
Film Studies Professor Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson was presented with the Award of Merit for Documentary Filmmaking at this year’s annual University Film and Video Association Conference. The Award of Merit is the association’s highest honor for artists, and is determined through a formal jury process. The award recognized her recent work, Sveit, a non-fiction video about memory, place and family history that K-Nelson produced in northern Iceland.
In addition to presenting her film, K-Nelson also served as a formal respondent to filmmaker Melanie La Rosa for her film, This Bird Flies Backward, and presented on a panel, “Teachable Moments: Managing Depictions of Violence Against Women in Student Filmmaking” with her colleagues Professor Jennifer Proctor (University of Michigan-Dearborn) and Professor River Branch (Allegheny College). K-Nelson’s contribution to the panel began with an examination of misogyny in popular culture and the Hollywood system, and proposed filmmaking as experience, offering practical approaches to the creative process through her paper, Hey, Haven’t I Seen This Somewhere? Addressing Regurgitated Narrative, Borrowed Identity and Recycled Abuse in Student Filmmaking.
This year’s UFVA conference was held at Champlain College in Burlington, Vt., Aug. 10-14. The UFVA is an international organization where media production meets history, theory and criticism.