Applications Open for DEFA Film Library’s 2025 Biennial Summer Film Institute

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The DEFA Film Library invites researchers, curators, educators and graduate students interested in environmental humanities and the fields of German, media, women’s and urban studies to attend the 12th Biennial Summer Film Institute, June 22-28, 2025, on the UMass Amherst campus.

Housing crises, gender injustice and large-scale environmental destruction are among the key topics that will be discussed at the one-week residential institute, themed “Screened Environments: Built, Natural, and Social Spaces in East Germany.”

The weeklong institute will alternate between workshops, discussions and film screenings. Daily screenings and discussions will pair East German films with a selection of theoretical readings and contemporary fiction and documentary films. The experience of crisis shown in these films will allow participants to draw connections to contemporary moments and examine the power of film and visual storytelling for imagining more socially and environmentally just futures.

Bettina Stoetzer, author and associate professor of cultural anthropology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose research focuses on the intersections of ecology, globalization and social justice, will be the opening keynote speaker.

Renowned film scholars Maria Stehle, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities and German at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, and Stephan Ehrig, assistant professor in German at the University of Glasgow, United Kingdom, will co-direct the workshops.

The cost to attend the institute is $850 for full-time faculty, $600 for non-tenure-track faculty and $450 for graduate students. Fees cover seven nights, single-occupancy housing in a UMass residence hall, six lunches in one of UMass Amherst’s award-winning dining commons, two catered dinners, coffee breaks, campus parking and the institute curriculum.

Applications are due by Feb. 10 and can be sent to Margaret Nguru at filmtour@german.umass.edu. Successful applicants will be notified of their selection by Feb. 28.

For more information, including application instructions, visit the DEFA Film Library Summer Film Institute website.