Argentine filmmaker Julia Solomonoff has been announced as the new Chair of the Graduate Film Department at New York University’s Kanbar Institute of Film and Television, part of the Tisch School of the Arts. The announcement was made public last week by NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Dean Allyson Green in an email addressed to NYU’s graduate film community.
Solomonoff is a graduate of the Centro de Experimentación y Realización Cinematográfica in Buenos Aires, and a Fulbright graduate of Columbia University’s MFA program. Her feature films include Hermanas (2005), distributed by Cinema Tropical; The Last Summer of la Boyita / El último verano de la Boyita (2009), produced by Pedro Almodóvar and winner of over 20 international awards; and Nobody’s Watching / Nadie nos mira (2017), winner of Best Actor Award at Tribeca Film Festival, and a New York Times and Village Voice Critic’s Pick when it was theatrically released at Film Forum. She also directed the documentary series Aerocene Pacha, a sustainable utopia and Paraná, biography of a river and several shorts (awarded by DGA, FIPRESCI and Milos Forman awards).
Her producing credits include: Lucrecia Martel’s Zama, Ana Piterbarg’s Everybody has a Plan, Celina Murga’s The Third Bank of the River, Julia Murat’s Pendular and Found Memories, Alejandro Landes’ Cocalero, and the upcoming The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer by Alessandra Sanguinetti. She has been teaching Directing for Film at the graduate level for a decade, starting at Columbia University, then moving on to NYU Tisch Graduate Film for five years. She is currently Head of Directing at Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, Brooklyn College.
“Thank you for this amazing opportunity to lead NYU's Graduate Film Program. This is an invigorating moment, one that questions the way we tell our stories. It's a moment of openness and learning for both faculty and students and I am excited for what it means for our future as filmmakers. I embrace the demand for diversity, equity and inclusion, the need to address issues of representation not just within our narratives but also in our methods of production” said Solomonoff in a written statement quoted in the announcement email.
“I am committed to foster a safe and brave space, a place to create with honesty and courage. These times demand flexibility, leadership and resilience from both educators and students. The challenges have multiplied, but so have the necessity and value of our purpose: to nurture a strong community of filmmakers, to foster collaboration, originality and diversity. I am looking forward to reuniting with NYU's committed faculty and talented students, and to advancing the strength and international prestige of its innovative and daring Graduate program. I am thrilled to return to NYU, a place where I can continue to grow and give, a place I can finally call home,” she added.
Solomonoff replaces Barbara Shock who served as Chair of Graduate Film for the past seven years.
