Film and Television

Boston Globe reporter Adri Pray spotlights the Women Take the Reel Film Festival, an annual celebration of female filmmakers that “features themes of gender, sexuality, race, feminism, and class.”

Arthur Musah '04, MEng '05 and Philip Abel '15 speak with GBH “Under The Radar” host Callie Crossley about Musah’s documentary, “Brief Tender Light,” which follows the life of four African-born students on their personal and academic experiences at MIT. “The takeaway for me is about how we all belong in all spaces all around the world,” says Musah. “For me, the film has always been about celebrating the lives of African students and Black people at institutions like MIT.”

Chronicle of Higher Ed reporter Karin Fischer spotlights “A Brief Tender Light,” a documentary created by Arthur Musah '04, MEng '05 that follows four African undergraduates at MIT on their journey as international students studying and working in Boston. Musah’s “dream scenario is that such screenings could facilitate dialogue between groups represented in the documentary, such as international and African students, students of color, and gay and lesbian students,” writes Fischer.

Writing for Sports Business Journal, Sloan Lecturer Shira Springer explores how the success of the “Barbie” movie could be applied to women's sports. “The ultimate goals for competitions that feature female athletes: Build a fandom and a movement capable of organic growth, convert casual fans into avid fans, attract the previously indifferent and uninterested,” writes Springer. “‘Barbie”’ did that. Moviegoers didn’t simply watch the movie; many joined in the fun, the new fandom and the new movement.”

“Brief Tender Light,” a documentary by Arthur Musah '04, MEng '05, spotlights four African-born MIT students and their experiences with adapting to the culture and challenges in and out of the classroom, reports Celina Colby for The Bay State Banner. “The story of international students, or specifically African students, in the U.S. hadn’t really been told,” says Musah. “Stats that I’ve learned more recently say there are about a million international students in any given year studying in the U.S., of which about 40,000 are African. That seems like a substantial portion of the fabric of American society.”

Arthur Musah '04, MEng '05 and graduate student Philip Abel Adama speak with WBUR host Tiziana Dearing about Musah’s documentary, “Brief Tender Light,” which follows the lives of four African-born MIT students, who “were driven to study in the U.S. and create change at home.” Musah explains, “I made this film because I felt having gone through the experience of studying in the U.S. and gone through a transformative experience, I felt that there were questions that were unanswered that I didn’t know I would have after the experience and so it was a way to go back and answer those questions or look for answers.” 

Prof. Thomas Kochan and Prof. Thomas Malone speak with Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray about the recent deal between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which will “protect movie screenwriters from losing their jobs to computers that could use artificial intelligence to generate screenplays.” Kochan notes that when it comes to AI, “where workers don’t have a voice through a union, most companies are not engaging their workers on these issues, and the workers have no rights, no redress.”

Arthur Musah '04, MEng '05 speaks with Boston Globe reporter Kajsa Kedefors about his new documentary, “Brief Tender Light,” which follows the lives of several African-born students from their first year at MIT through graduation and to their first jobs. Musah, “weaves in his own reflections in voice-overs throughout the film, exploring what it means to be an international African student at an elite American institution,” explains Kedefors. “He speaks to the pressure the students in the film share from back home: the idea that education is valuable and rare — that they should bring back what they learned to better the community.”

Herbert Kalmus ‘03 and former MIT Prof. Daniel Frost Comstock ‘04 co-founded Technicolor, the company that helped bring color to the movies. Boston Globe correspondent Scott Kirsner notes that the company’s name was “an homage to MIT, which publishes a yearbook called Technique.” Kirsner adds that Technicolor engineers “had to develop their own cameras, shooting and lighting techniques on set, film processing, and add-ons to the movie projector... Technicolor became one of the giants of 20th-century Hollywood.”

Boston Globe reporters Maddie Browning and Abigail Lee highlight the “Women Take the Reel Film Festival,” an annual event that spotlights “women-directed films that grapple with social issues like gender or sexuality.” The festival is hosted by the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality at MIT, and each screening features a discussion and Q&A session.

Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah emphasizes the importance of representation in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” which featured Riri Williams (Ironheart) as a Black female engineer at MIT. Attiah notes that she is “grateful that ‘Black Panther 2’ exists to show us what #BlackGirlGenius looks like.” 

Parents reporter Tanay Howard writes that “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” offers up powerful role models, in particular Shuri and Riri Williams (also known as Ironheart), who is depicted as an MIT student. “Seeing Shuri and Riri Williams do their thing in Black Panther is not only an exciting dynamic for Marvel comic readers but an inspiration to Black girls and women,” writes Howard.

Assia Boundaoui, a fellow at the MIT Open Documentary Lab, writes for The Los Angeles Times about her experience as a Muslim American filmmaker. “Despite the many ways we have been marginalized within the film industry, Muslim and Middle Eastern filmmakers will continue to tell our stories – stories where our humanity is assumed, not a subject of debate,” writes Boundaoui.

Graduate student Lilly Chin, winner of the 2017 Jeopardy! College Championship, reminisces with Tiziana Dearing of Radio Boston about "Jeopardy!" game show host Alex Trebek. “Alex really enjoyed being on the job, but also enjoyed sort of being an uncle to the contestants, as well as America at large,” recalls Chin. 

Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. D. Fox Harrell, Francesca Panetta and Pakinam Amer of the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality explore the potential dangers posed by deepfake videos. “Combatting misinformation in the media requires a shared commitment to human rights and dignity — a precondition for addressing many social ills, malevolent deepfakes included,” they write.