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And the winners are…Angelo Madsen, Milton Guillén, and Myles Jewell for their outstanding efforts to create thought-provoking documentaries. This past summer, these three faculty members, all of whom teach within ����̽̽’s (����̽̽’s) College of Arts and Sciences, each received one of 13 Moving Image Fund grants from the prestigious . Guillén and Jewell, whose films are currently in production, were both awarded $15,000, while Madsen received $25,000 for post-production work on his film.

This outstanding representation by ����̽̽ faculty among the LEF recipients this year emphasizes the importance of filmmaking at ����̽̽. “We are continually steeped in visual culture, and promoting media literacy is a privilege and a duty,” Jewell says. “It is a vital way to flex the muscle of communicating, of negotiating vision, and of compromising and problem solving. And these skills make people a touch more whole.”

The Moving Image Fund was launched by in 2001 to support new film and video work. The grants support feature-length documentary films that demonstrate excellence in technique, strong storytelling ability, and originality of artistic vision and voice. ����̽̽’s three award winners stand out in all these areas, with film projects that explore a range of important and complex topics.

Angelo Madsen

Film: A Body to Live In

A Body to Live In, which is in post-production, is about the luminary and controversial artist Fakir Musafar (1930–2018) and the body-modification movement. “The queer art of body modification took center stage in 1989 when Fakir Musafar’s Modern Primitives movement hit alternative cultures around the globe via the punk subcultural magazine Re/Search,” Madsen says.

Madsen, an associate professor in both the Program in Art and Art History and the Film and Television Studies Program, adds that as a photographer, performance artist, and ritualist, Musafar created work that mobilized an entire generation of artists, thinkers, and seekers. Madsen adds, “A Body to Live In introduces this riveting ‘Gender Flex’ icon to uncover the rich history of western body modification and its complex intersection with sexuality, spirituality, and cultural appropriation.”

The film involves 80 years of archival photographs, 16mm motion portraits of the elders involved with this movement, audio interviews, and staged tableaus of the objects and artifacts of this history. Madsen says his work is inspired by a lifelong interest in subcultural phenomena and community building, especially regarding the intersection of sexuality and spirituality. He hopes to offer a new lens through which to look at this history, both conceptually and artistically.

“LEF is a true gem to the New England area,” Madsen says. “They continuously support challenging and rigorous projects, and I’m lucky to say they have been supporting me for years. Any kind of support, financial or otherwise, is an affirmation that the work is wanted and needed in the world.”

Milton Guillén

Film: My Skin and I

Through images of the Nicaraguan authoritarian regime, Milton Guillén, assistant professor in the Film and Television Studies Program, and co-director Fiona Guy Hall address questions of aesthetics, power, and discipline, both as constructions and abstractions, in his upcoming film, My Skin and I. “The film builds lyrical realms in collaboration with other artists in exile, visualizing ongoing tragedy in a multilinear timeline that traces what led to the national protests of 2018,” Guillén says.

At its core, the film explores Guillén’s personal relationship to political power and exile via fictional embodiments of his family, particularly his relationship with his father. He says that his personal story is a starting point from which the film evolves into a co-created exploration of what it means to be forced to leave your country behind.

According to Guillén, My Skin and I is a hybrid documentary—part performance, part historical, and part documentation of the present. It explores themes of displacement, loss, and the challenges of revisiting past traumas, and sheds light on the complexities of creating art in volatile environments. The subject matter is relevant to many different audiences worldwide, including displaced people, climate migrators, political refugees, and more.

Guillén likes to incorporate images and scenes that evoke a sensation, which he sometimes arrives at by using more experimental filming techniques. Other images are slowed down, pixilated, and pushed to abstraction. “This film asks: Who are these images for?” he says. “My hope is that, when answering, we reach a conclusion that reflects a community experience of healing and an understanding of why some people flee.”

Myles Jewell

Film: Burlington, This is You!

In Burlington, This is You!, Myles Jewell, lecturer in Community Development and Applied Economics (in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences) and affiliated instructor with the Film and Television Studies Program, excavates the 40-year archive of Burlington’s Chittenden Community Television (CCTV). It is a “David and Goliath” story of a small community media access station that stepped into a regulatory arena and earned funds to create access for all. 

The film is a mix of observational and interactive footage, and the approach is highly participatory, involving current CCTV staff members. “I have turned on a camera in the station or out in the field with people more than 85 days in the course of three years,” Jewell says, “and this is on top of the 40-year archive we’re working with.” He adds that they are crafting a kind of DIY retro-VHS aesthetic to pay tribute to the tech that made this all possible.

“We are trying to make people aware of this robust archive of Burlington’s hyper-local history for the past 40 years,” Jewell continues. “And the more material we can contribute to it, the more a chorus of truth rises to help create identities and make sure we don’t erase others.” He hopes this documentary inspires people to get involved in the local—to use this public resource, to spread the word that these archives are important and provide access to voices that sometimes are left out of mainstream media. 

Jewell adds that receiving the LEF grant felt like a huge victory. “To be in the company of Angelo Madsen and Milton Guillén is flattering,” he says. “To be in the list of filmmakers that LEF supports and be a part of that conversation is a lot of hard work. You don’t just arrive here. It is failure after failure, and you just need to keep showing up.”