Students and Their Work
Class of 2024
Lananh Chu is from Vietnam and graduated with a degree in media studies from The New School. She/they want to taste with her broken tongues, see with her low-definition eyes, and listen with her flawed ears.
Zara Franke (they/them) studied anthropology and film and is originally from Berlin. They thought they’d become an academic/activist, but found art. Zara is part of a saxophone duo, Mohnkabinett, an experimental jazz/angry poetry group of the underground scene in NYC. Zara has been hosting shows in their living room and small basement of upstate New York since 2017 and started their own collective show, Abendbrot, showcasing queer artists and artists who don’t usually fit the mainstream and do it LOUDLY. They are an experimental filmmaker and currently part of 8ball tv, working on a documentary about chaos computer, the DIY venue that followed in the footsteps of the glove. Zara also makes experimental films on Mini DV that are shown at small underground venues.
Born in France, raised in Germany, and currently based in Brooklyn, Samuel Döring (he/they) is a film programmer, radio host, and to-be-documentarian. They graduated with a BA in Media and Film Studies at Bauhaus-University Weimar and Université Paris-Cité with a thesis discussing the political and subversive potential of the observational cinema aesthetics in Frederick Wiseman’s oeuvre. Sam has worked as a cultural programmer at Goethe-Institut Senegal and as a program coordinator at DOK Leipzig. In a European student project on sharing subaltern knowledge, he collaboratively created a multilingual audio walk in 2022 that addresses sexualized violence in public spaces. He strongly believes in the need for civil disobedience and therefore got involved in diverse emancipatory movements, sabotaging fossil infrastructures or ad-busting to fight Europe’s lethal border policies. Together with two friends, Sam co-hosts the radio show Nach dem Kino (After the Cinema). They are looking forward to cinematographically exploring NYC’s queer sex party scene in the Documentary Studies program.
Jordan Salyers (he/him) was born in Maryland in 1992 to an extraordinary, singular single mother, Kanette. His first act of independence was flunking out of the local college. He then made the most regrettable decision, in 2012, to enlist in the U.S. Navy. He has a lot to say about that. In 2019, he grew out his hair and relocated to NYC as a student at The New School. He works with blended fictions; he likes found-footage film and video; he loves his partner, Victoria, and her cat, Uma. He hopes to remain a student indefinitely.
Born and raised in Vienna, Bernhard Weber (he/him) graduated with a degree in media technology and acquired more than seven years of experience as the head of media production at a multimedia agency. He has now reached a point in his career where he is looking forward to exploring a medium that allows him to showcase his creativity while attempting to make a useful social impact. His interest in music and previous work for an Austrian radio station will be his driving force as he delves into NYC's music scene for his documentary film project.
B.A. Williams (they/she) is a queer writer and filmmaker from East Long Beach, California. When they aren't creating, they are putting together puzzles with their toddler or in deep conversation with their wife. Their poetry and prose focus on all things "other," with a heavy emphasis on Blackness, mothering, and queerness. Their work is featured in Rigorous magazine, Every-Other Broadsides, The Rumpus, and the New York Times: Parenting.