A New Era for Film at UMass: Barbara Zecchi on Launching the Film Studies Major and Videographic Criticism Graduate Certificate
Written by Chloe Borgida
Content
Fall 2025 marks a historic moment for Film Studies at UMass Amherst. For the first time, the university has launched a full Film Studies B.A. major, alongside a groundbreaking online Graduate Certificate in Videographic Criticism. These two programs formalize more than three decades of interdisciplinary work already thriving on campus, while opening new pathways for audiovisual research, creative practice, and global engagement.
To understand how this came about—and where these new programs are headed—we spoke with Professor Barbara Zecchi, Director of UMass Film Studies, whose leadership has helped guide both initiatives into reality.
The New Film Studies Major
A Major 30 Years in the Making
“When Catherine Portuges, Barton Byg, Jacqueline Urla, Susan Jahoda, and others founded the Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies in 1991, they imagined a space that was deeply interdisciplinary, international, and ahead of its time,” she says. “What they built kept expanding.” From its small founding unit, Film Studies has grown into a vibrant community. Housed in the HFA, it spans more than 20 faculty across twelve departments and two colleges, supports multiple undergraduate and graduate certificates, and sustains the Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival (MMFF), which is now in its 32nd year and one of the longest-running university film festivals in the country.
“Eventually the question became: ‘How have we not launched a major already?’ The students were already doing major-level work. They deserved a home that reflected their ambitions.” The launch confirms what long seemed inevitable: Film Studies at UMass has matured into a full-fledged academic discipline.
Goals Rooted in Humanity
At the heart of the new major is a blend of humanistic inquiry and hands-on creative work. “We want students to think globally and interdisciplinarily,” Zecchi explains. “To see cinema as an artistic form and a cultural force. To move fluidly between production, analysis, and research.” The response has been immediate. In its first semester, over 50 students declared the major, underscoring high demand for a public university program that combines accessibility with academic rigor.
Six Years of Planning
Behind the scenes, the major’s development required a long institutional journey. The first proposal was submitted in 2019, followed by a three-year incubation period in BDIC where Film Studies demonstrated strong student demand, ultimately growing to over 80 active majors by 2024. With enthusiastic support from successive deans and provosts, the proposal passed through the multi-stage approval process at UMass and the Board of Higher Education.
By Spring 2025, the program had secured unanimous approvals at every level, paving the way for a Fall 2025 launch. The fact that so many students declared immediately “validated everything we saw during the incubation period,” Zecchi says. “Students thrive in Film Studies.”
A Public Alternative
UMass now offers something no other public institution in Massachusetts does: a B.A. in Film Studies grounded in history, theory, aesthetics, criticism, and hands-on practice.
While private institutions such as Amherst, Emerson, Harvard, Northeastern, and Smith have long offered comparable programs, the only public alternative—MassArt’s BFA—focuses narrowly on production. “Our major offers the intellectual rigor of those elite programs, but with the affordability and accessibility of a public university,” Zecchi notes. “That combination is rare.”
Three Concentrations, Many Possible Paths
Students choose from three concentrations:
- Film History, Theory, and Criticism: emphasizing avant-garde cinema, arthouse traditions, visual anthropology, countercultural movements, and more.
- International Cinemas (World and Global): exploring African, Latin American, European, and Asian cinemas, with attention to national and transnational movements.
- Film Production: offering screenwriting, animation, podcasting, videographic criticism, documentary, editing, and 16mm filmmaking.
Specializations, including Advanced Film Criticism, Videographic Scholarship, Screenwriting, and World Cinemas, are currently in development.
Graduates emerge with analytical skills, creative portfolios, international perspectives, and technical experience suited for careers across academia, production, media industries, research, and festival work.
Courses and Experiences That Transform Students
Among the many new and reimagined courses, Zecchi highlights several that epitomize the major’s vision:
Videographic Criticism, which enables students to merge scholarly rigor with audiovisual creativity
Film Festival Lab, built around the MMFF and providing hands-on experience in programming, curation, and public scholarship.
16mm Filmmaking, which reintroduces analog film to UMass in a sustainable, tactile, conceptually rich way
New York on Film, featuring an immersive, two-day trip to the city’s archives and exhibition spaces.
Untold Screenwriting, focusing on unconventional and often overlooked forms of screenwriting.
The Visiting Filmmakers Series, bringing acclaimed international filmmakers to teach workshops in directing, cinematography, screenwriting, and videographic practice
“These experiences give students access to working professionals and allow them to produce meaningful, portfolio-ready work,” Zecchi says.
Opportunities Beyond The Classroom
Film Studies at UMass has long cultivated a culture of engagement that extends far beyond coursework.
Students participate in:
- The Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival (screenings, dialogues, internships)
- The UMassterclass Film Podcast, produced entirely by students
- Undergraduate research and national conference presentations
- Peer advising and teaching assistantships
- Five College events, including the Film Studies Festival and the Undergraduate Film & Media Conference
- The prestigious Michael S. Roif Award, which annually recognizes outstanding student filmmaking or scholarship
“These opportunities build confidence, skills, and connections,” Zecchi explains. “They prepare students for whatever they choose next.”
Zecchi’s Excitement
“For me, the most exciting thing is the energy,” Zecchi says. “The students declaring right away, the colleagues building new courses, the feeling that we’re creating something rooted in a rich tradition yet boldly forward-looking.”
She credits the launch to her “inner-circle team”—Barry Spence, Daniel Pope, and Ian Sedelow—and to the entire Film Studies faculty across HFA and SBS. “The major reflects the best of UMass: collaboration, creativity, global engagement, and a belief in film as a way to understand and transform the world.”
“And, of course, all this would have not been possible without the enthusiastic support of HFA Dean Lupe Davidson.”
The Graduate Certificate in Video Criticism
“In a digital world dominated by audiovisual communication, videographic criticism has become a best-practice method for translating critical thinking into audiovisual expression,” Zecchi says.
UMass is already an international leader in the field:
- Host of the 2021 international conference Theory and Practice in Videographic Criticism
- Sponsor of workshops with celebrated video essayists such as Dayna McLeod, Lého Galibert-Lainé, and Johannes Binotto
- Home to faculty whose work appears regularly in the BFI’s Sight & Sound “Best Video Essays”
- Editorial home to [in]Transition, the field’s flagship journal, edited by Zecchi
“This certificate builds on that momentum,” she adds. “It trains students to create rigorous, imaginative, publishable audiovisual scholarship.”
Who The Program Is For
The certificate attracts a diverse cohort:
- Graduate students in film and media studies
- High school teachers integrating media into classrooms
- University faculty updating pedagogy
- Documentary filmmakers
- Digital humanists and librarians
- Creators, critics, and media practitioners
“No prior film training is required,” Zecchi notes. “Just a desire to think audiovisually.”
A Four-Course Curriculum that Marries Theory and Practice
The 12-credit certificate includes two required courses:
- FILM-ST 650: Videographic Teaching (Fall) – videographic methods for pedagogy and research
- FILM-ST 651: Videographic Practice (Spring) – techniques, formats, experimentation, distribution
Students then choose two electives: Working with Sound, Working with Editing, Working with the Body, Working with Surfaces. Each is designed to strengthen both conceptual and technical sophistication. Students then choose two electives among 4 courses: Working with Sound, Working with Editing, Working with the Body, Working with Surfaces. Each is designed to strengthen both conceptual and technical sophistication.
The Work Students Create
Student projects vary widely:
- Analytical video essays
- Hybrid scholarly–creative works
- Desktop documentaries
- Performative or embodied video research
- Experiments in rhythm, montage, sound, voice, and gesture
“The program encourages risk-taking and conceptual experimentation,” Zecchi says. “Students develop distinctive videographic voices.”
Careers and Futures
The certificate prepares students for:
- University teaching
- Curriculum design
- Research and publication
- Documentary and media production
- Digital scholarship
- Creative and critical video work
Unlike traditional master’s or doctoral programs, “this certificate is entirely videographic,” Zecchi emphasizes. “It’s focused, rigorous, and designed for immediate professional impact.”
International Faculty and Mentors
Zecchi designed the program with Johannes Binotto (University of Lucerne), one of the world’s foremost video essayists. Students also learn from Dayna McLeod, a Canadian media artist-scholar who engages queer and feminist approaches to research-creation through art and media; Alan O’Leary, an Irish scholar at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, who investigates constraint-based (‘parametric’) approaches to videographic criticism as a posthuman mode of knowing emerging from the assemblage of hardware, software, systems, and organisms; Colleen Laird from the University of British Columbia, co-founder of the collective Ways of Doing, which fosters an ethical praxis of audiovisual research, including feminist citational practice and collective care; and Evelyn Kreutzer, a German media scholar involved in the grant-funded research project The Video Essay: Memories, Ecologies, Bodies, focusing on questions of memory and archival theory and practice in the videographic mode.
“This international cohort gives students access to some of the most innovative thinkers working today,” Zecchi says.
Mentorship Through Every Stage
Faculty mentor students through idea development, research design, experimentation, technical execution, and distribution—whether for publication, teaching, or professional portfolios.
“It’s intensive, but incredibly rewarding,” Zecchi says. “Students emerge transformed.”
Why Does This Field Matter
For Zecchi, videographic criticism is thrilling precisely because of its hybridity. “It unites scholarship, teaching, and creative practice. It helps students produce work that is engaging, relevant, and accessible. It opens new ways of seeing, thinking, making, and feeling media.”
Advice for Prospective Students
I tell students: this certificate teaches a new language,” she says. “You don’t just gain technical skills—you learn to think differently. Videographic criticism can transform how you research, how you teach, and how you engage with media. It’s an incredibly exciting shift.
Transformative Moment for Film At UMass
With the launch of the Film Studies major and the Graduate Certificate in Videographic Criticism, UMass Amherst enters a new era: one that honors more than three decades of collaborative history while embracing a dynamic, global, and creative future.
Featuring
Barbara Zecchi
Professor Zecchi specializes in Latin American and Iberian cinema
