This year’s festival featured panels, roundtables, writing workshops and readings. Students could hear from and converse with professional poets, novelists, critics, playwrights, musicians and historians, as well as editors of the Yale Review. Featured speakers included Ocean Vuong, Lucy Sante, Jonathan Lethem, Raven Leilani and Catherine Lacey, among others. 

“The goal of the festival is to bring The Yale Review to students, to bring the pages alive into the rooms of the festival and to bring in a space of co-creation between writers and students,” said Meghan O’Rourke, editor of the Yale Review, in her introduction of the festival.  

This year’s festival was the “most ambitious yet,” said O’Rourke. 

The festival also hosted generative workshops — sessions in which audience members participated in writing exercises that experimented with the body, memory and language.

These sessions invited Catherine Lacey, author of “The Biography of X”; Ocean Vuong, author of “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”; and Raven Leilani, author of “Luster.” 

Lacey’s fiction generative workshop invited audience members to incorporate sensations of the body into the way they respond to and produce writing. 

Reflecting on her own experiences with figuring out her writing voice, Lacey described the process of writing her first published novel, “Nobody is Ever Missing.” For Lacey, she initially thought of writing as a “purely intellectual thing.” Later, she became aware of a “physical sensation” that accompanied her voice when she wrote. 

“There’s an internal kind of system, like a physical manifestation of the voice of the syntax that feels very bodily,” Lacey said. 

Recreating this feeling for her audience members, Lacey asked them to stand up and close their eyes. Lacey read excerpts from Thomas Bernhard’s “Woodcutters,” Ia Genberg’s “The Details” and Henry Hoke’s “Open Throat.” 

Lacey told participants to be aware of the “tensions and differences” that these writings evoked within the body. Following each reading, Lacey asked the audience to share the specific sensory experience that they felt. Then, students were asked to write a scene that evoked one of these sensations. 

“The body is very much present with you at your desk and your posture, your breathing and the tension in your body is affecting everything that you’re creating. You’re hearing the sentences in your mind as if they’re being kind of breathed into life,” Lacey said. 

In his generative workshop, Vuong also shared his insights into his writing process. Vuong emphasized the significance of challenging the prevailing need to focus on the end result. 

Living in “a country that fetishizes commerce,” Vuong said that this culture of consumerism has “contaminated” the way art is perceived. 

Seeking to shift the focus of writing from product to process, Vuong encouraged writers “to sit in the space of thinking and questioning and being okay with its imperfections.” 

“You’re not going to get anything close to a poem, just a few lines,” said Vuong. 

Vuong told the audience to write down their biographical information — their given name, date of birth, place of birth and every specific place they have lived. Vuong then asked the audience to identify and draw a map of their place of residence, as well as its interior and neighborhood surroundings. 

Fleshing out their memories further, participants were asked to jot down the sounds, lingo,  significant objects and feelings that were evoked by or found in their chosen living spaces. Participants finished this exercise by writing one to two lines of poetry that emerged from this  memory map. 

Raven Leilani’s prose workshop also challenged participants to reimagine the ways they used language in their writing. 

Leilani told participants to write a brief autobiography or a biography of a fictional character. Then, participants wrote from the same prompt two additional times without using any of the same language as the original paragraph. 

Through this exercise, writers could build upon what they had previously written in order to explore the nuances and tensions within a sentence and use varying language to articulate their ideas. 

By comparing the first and last entries they wrote, audience members could “see the distance between them” and go beyond “the familiar ways we have told the story,” said Leilani. 

The Yale Review is the oldest quarterly literary magazine in the United States.

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The festival was first held in 2012 and ran for the following two years. After 2014, the festival was discontinued. In fall 2017, two first-year students, Sabrina Macias ’21 and T.J. Maresca ’21, discovered the film festival on the Stiles website and revived the festival. 

“What the festival is about is just trying to bring the college together, to showcase student films, and have fun,” said Alex Johnson ‘25, one of the student organizers of the festival. 

Like the Yale Student Film Festival, which took place the week before, the Stiles Film Festival featured short films across numerous genres — experimental, comedy, drama and musical. 

Several of the screened films were made by first-time filmmakers. The festival was a way for new and long-time filmmakers to meet, connect with each other and potentially collaborate on future projects, according to Marc Levenson, the assistant director of operations at Stiles. 

“The festival is a chance for students of all levels of filmmaking — from serious filmmakers to hobbyists who are making their first film — to show their films in a setting that’s very cool, dignified and set up with great tech,” said Levenson. 

The Stiles dining hall was set up to resemble a movie theater — complete with a red carpet, projector, sparkling drinks, popcorn and film posters — bringing the screenings to life. 

The films were diverse in style and narrative, portraying stories that ranged from first loves to trash-riddled frat shenanigans to orchestral symphonies on black holes. 

Following the screening, moose-shaped trophies were given out to winners of six categories. 

Winning best experimental was Martin Vakoc’s ’26 “Hyperion Lot” — a sonic exploration of New Haven parking lots. “Paper Dreams,” Nicole Viloria’s ’26 first film, depicted a Yale first-year grappling with her past love and won best cinematography. 

Olivia Cevasco ’26’s “Scholar” showcased a Yale student struggling to balance his academic and creative side, culminating in an a capella performance that earned the film the award of best musical.  

“The Very Sad Tale of Gerald Humm” by Daphne Joyce Wu ’26 won best humor for its portrayal of a clueless Gerald Humm trying to figure out why his girlfriend broke up with him. Best drama went to Eleanor Atlee’s ’25 and Molly Smith’s ’25 collaboration of “The Walrus,” an emotional close-up of a sister struggling to remember her brother’s favorite chips. 

Johnson’s film “Proxy” – an intense, mind-bending trip to the multiverse through a professor’s mid-life crisis – took home best film overall. 

Other films screened were “Practice” by Erita Chen ’26, “An Ode to Avocado” by Paloma Lenz ’26, “Active Galactic Nuclei for Symphony Orchestra” by Rory Benjamin Bricca ’26, “Saint Valentine” by Eleanor Atlee ’25, “Black Coffee” by Daphne Joyce Wu ’26, “Trashley and the Curse of the Frat Paddle” by Molly Smith ’25 and “Goodbye, Shanghai” by Chenjun Gao ’27. 

Susan Youssef, Yale College film advisor and one of the judges for the festival, was deeply impressed by the films and praised the “bravery” of making a film as a student. 

“We’re rooting for these works. It’s a joyful and optimistic process. I’m scoring the films, as if I am rooting for the film to win: each and every film,” Youssef wrote in an email to the News.  

The Stiles Film Festival reflects the many efforts of the college to host a lot of fun community events, as Levenson put it. 

Youssef echoed these sentiments, praising Stiles’s “warm, kind and celebratory environment,” which provides a welcoming space for students who are just starting to make films and showing their work to an audience. 

“Watching a film in this setting is also an invaluable learning experience. It’s a way for students to understand how their films play — how they sound, how they land emotionally, and how audiences truly react,” wrote Youssef. 

Ezra Stiles College was founded in 1961.

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The 14-person directing board and 19-person programming team worked to bring students and community members together for four full days of events. This year, the festival received over 500 submissions from 47 countries, and 51 films were selected for screening. 11 of the selected films will be recognized at an award ceremony.

“Since a lot of people who attend the festival might not have actually considered film before as something that they might want to do, it makes film at Yale more accessible to everyone here, not just film majors,” said Thomasin Schmults ’26, one of the festival’s co-directors.

The selected films span a wide range of genres — narrative, documentary, experimental and animation. Starting last year, an additional category was specifically created for films made by high school students.

Florence Barillas ’27, the festival’s outreach coordinator, solicited submissions from university film departments and clubs and high schools in the New Haven and Fairfield areas.

Barillas also used FilmFreeway, a website for filmmakers to submit their work to festivals, to connect with international student filmmakers.

“I’m from El Salvador and wanting to pursue film was a bit scary at first, because back home, we don’t have an entertainment industry,” said Barillas. “But when I came to Yale, the community was so incredible and supportive.”

Alongside student films, the festival will feature two spotlight screenings: “Gladiator II” and “Hell of a Summer.” Producers of “Gladiator II,” Doug Wick ’78 and Lucy Fisher, will be present for the screening.

This year’s panels and workshops also encompass numerous student interests — production, business, law, journalism and screenwriting.

Speakers include Matt Thunell ’07, president of Skydance Television; Erin McDonough ’14, senior vice president of global strategy and insights at Paramount Pictures; and Bilge Ebiri, film critic for “New York Magazine” and “Vulture.” 

The Yale Center for Collaborative Arts and Media will also host a filmmaker workshop for students of all levels of experience. The workshop will be led by students whose films are featured in the festival and will showcase filmmaking techniques used in their films.

“Our goal with picking our speakers was focusing on a mix of projects and people that would be exciting, having a practical idea of what people are interested in, and bringing different communities together,” said Abby Asmuth ’26, co-director of the festival and a WKND editor for the News. 

Director of programming Robert Gao ’27 was responsible for choosing the student films that would be screened.

Selected films did not need to have the biggest budget or the most polished final presentation, said Gao. Rather, alongside the programming team, Gao looked for films with “ideas and vision.”

Additionally, Gao wanted to showcase stories that will be “relatable to our audience.” Many of the films revolve around themes of being a college student.

One film Gao highlighted is “Visa” by Chi Tran, which tells the story of an Asian employee who tries to become a victim of a hate crime to obtain a green card. Gao said that the film “shocked everyone” upon their first watch.

“There’s something for everyone, and the audience will have fun at the screenings,” said Gao. 

Free tickets and a list of the festival’s events can be found on the Yale Student Film Festival website.

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Known for multiple bestselling young adult, or YA, fantasy series, including “Shadow and Bone,” “Six of Crows” and “Ninth House,” Bardugo returned to her alma mater to conduct research for the third book of the “Ninth House” trilogy, which takes place at Yale. While on campus, Pauli Murray College hosted Bardugo for tea on March 5.

Speaking to a packed room, Bardugo offered advice for aspiring writers and shared insights into her creative process and the setbacks that have shaped her personal growth. 

“Especially when it comes to making art, you have to fail at it. You have to sit with the discomfort of that everyday,” Bardugo said.

Bardugo admitted that she did not publish her first book until 15 years after she graduated, and she spent much of that time “trying to write a book and failing.” Yet Bardugo believes this experience of failing is essential to the creative journey.

Bardugo emphasized the process of writing rather than the result. She saw failure as “a sign that I was trying to do something big and difficult and exciting.”

Although Bardugo admitted she wasn’t the best student at Yale — often cramming the night before exams — she said that her process as a writer differs. Writing, she said, is a process that cannot be rushed.

“I think that anything worth doing, you can’t do it the night before it’s due,” Bardugo said.

Bardugo’s time at Yale allowed her to build the foundations for her future expertise, she told students. According to Bardugo, the learning process for artists — years of practice, false starts and mistakes — is less talked about than the final product.

During her time at Yale, Bardugo was involved in the performing arts. A self-dubbed “theater nerd,” Bardugo acted in various plays and participated in a campus improv group, which “brought me out of my shell.”

“I had been a really outgoing kid, and then junior high and high school beat that out of me,” said Bardugo. “I became much more nervous, and I feel like being in that improv group gave my audacity back to me, and it really turned out to be an amazing skill for being an author.”

Her time at Yale influenced the plot of “Ninth House,” a dark fantasy novel that takes readers on an occult journey through Yale’s secret societies. Bardugo did not know about the existence of societies until she was a student at Yale, where she was a member of the secret society, Wolf’s Head.

As someone “obsessed with magic,” she said, Bardugo had a gut feeling about attending Yale. Throughout her time at Yale, she was fascinated by the secrets of the institution that reveal themselves “if you’re willing to dig a little bit deeper.” 

“I visited Yale in the dead of winter when I was figuring out where to go to school, and it was cold and miserable, and I absolutely loved it,” Bardugo said.

Bardugo fondly remembers that everyone she met was “full of passion.” Being in a secret society allowed her to meet people from various backgrounds, she said. 

Apart from the “fancy dinners and fancy house,” Bardugo cherishes the friends she has made through society, some of whom she is still in close contact with.

This process of forming a community through telling stories is deeply important to Bardugo.

“We live in a world that is largely devoid of ritual and these sort of shared communal moments where we come together and we celebrate together,” reflected Bardugo.

Yet Bardugo does not solely depict a rose-tinted image of Yale. Bardugo’s novel “Ninth House” grapples with the elitism, class division and injustices that undergird Yale’s institutional privilege.

Describing feelings of “class anxiety,” Bardugo remembered being overwhelmed by the extent of wealth and power that she encountered.

“When I came here, I really felt like there was a language that everyone else spoke that I didn’t, and I still feel the echoes of that today,” said Bardugo.

Bardugo seeks to capture both the positive and negative sides of Yale’s “history, lore, and enchantment” in her novels, so she regularly returns to campus to conduct research.

Bardugo had been an associate fellow of Pauli Murray since 2021. Bardugo was researching for the “Ninth House” series during the pandemic, and the staff of Pauli Murray aided her through restrictions that were in place due to COVID-19, said Suzette Courtmanche, senior administrative assistant of Pauli Murray College.

Professor Tina Lu, head of Pauli Murray College and a fan of Bardugo’s works, praised Bardugo for her creativity.

“There’s a constant stream of amazing things falling out of her pen from her brain,” Lu said.

Many attendees were also long-time fans of Bardugo’s works. Julia Levy ’25, a staff reporter at the News, said that she first read Bardugo’s novel “Six of Crows” when it was published in 2015.

“‘Six of Crows’ was on the list for my city’s Troybery program for middle school students. It’s lovely seeing her now that I go to Yale and knowing that she went here too,” Levy said. 

According to Levy, the genre of young adult fantasy started to receive more mainstream attention when she was in middle school. Young adult novels published at this time marked a shift in stories and themes presented to younger audiences. 

“Six of Crows” was “fundamental in redefining the [young adult] genre,” said Levy.

Theresa Fu ’28, who grew up reading Bardugo’s books and watching the Netflix adaptations, said that it was “invigorating” for her to see the creative force behind these works.

“Learning about her timeline as a writer was inspiring because she’s felt like such a constant throughout my childhood, but she also faced setbacks and had to persevere for her craft,” Fu said.

Currently, Bardugo is working on the third and final installment of the “Ninth House” series.

“We’re going to be pivoting back to the societies and to a new location that is tied deeply to the history of this place,” said Bardugo, about her upcoming book. “It’s going to be a big book, and it’s gonna have a pretty, I guess the Hollywood term would be explosive.

Pauli Murray College is located on 130 Prospect St.

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The conversation, moderated by film journalist Kevin McCarthy, offered a glimpse into Levy and Reynolds’s collaborative relationship and insights from their experiences in the film industry. Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds are frequent collaborators, known for joint projects, such as “Free Guy,” “The Adam Project” and “Deadpool and Wolverine.”

“These are two people so in sync with each other that they are the testament to the true idea of cinema,” McCarthy said during his introduction of Levy and Reynolds.

The line for entry stretched from the Schwarzman Center to Cross Campus. Woolsey Hall, which seats over 2,600 people, was at full capacity.

When Yale registration opened on Jan. 24, the event was completely booked within seven minutes of opening. Similarly, registration for the general public reached its limit quickly, and the event ended up having a waitlist.

“I went because I’m a big fan of Ryan Reynolds and wanted to hear from him and Shawn Levy about their work together,” wrote Carim Jalloh ’28. “I really enjoyed getting to see Ryan’s personality in real life, as well as the connection between Reynolds and Levy and how that played into their work.”

From Deadpool to Blue Shirt Guy from “Free Guy,” many audience members were dressed up as different characters that Reynolds had played. 

New Haven residents and cousins Davey Lozano and Julian Shadeck dressed up as Deadpool and Wolverine. The pair sat in the very front and received attention from Reynolds, who walked over and offered them a water bottle so they could stay hydrated in their costumes.

The talk began with a screening of the opening scene of “Deadpool and Wolverine,” which features Reynolds as Deadpool battling his enemies while dancing to NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye.”

McCarthy described the clip as one of the “best openings seen in film” and a scene that encapsulated Levy and Reynolds’s collaboration.

Returning to the origins of their collaborative relationship, McCarthy displayed a text conversation from 2018 in which Reynolds asked Levy to sign onto “Free Guy.”

“Emotionally, what does that text mean to you?” McCarthy asked.

According to Reynolds, “it was like a feeling.” He urged the audience to believe in themselves and go with a “feeling.”

“I had a feeling about Shawn,” Reynolds said. “We would have a creative love that would work somehow.” 

According to Levy, Hugh Jackman predicted the duo’s strong collaborative dynamic when he starred in Levy’s film “Real Steel.”

Upon their first encounter, Levy and Reynolds were instantly very comfortable with each other, Levy said.

“Maybe it was because we’re both Canadian,” Levy joked.

Reynolds noted that what stuck out to him about Levy’s films is that they all contain the theme of joy. Existing in many forms — from the “subversive” to the “totally gnarly” — joy is Levy and Reynolds’s “north star,” he said.

Levy recounted how he and Reynolds would take the Acela between Boston and New York City. During the journey, the two would pass a laptop back and forth, rewriting the scenes they planned to shoot the following week.

“When we’re making a movie, we’re not always thinking about the theme, rather the feeling,” said Levy. “Ryan and I want to put this feeling into the world because feeling matters most.”

Levy and Reynolds seek to create films that bring joy, connect audiences and evoke the feeling of togetherness that the duo experiences while collaborating.

Reynolds and Levy said that the current times are “divisive” and expressed their desire to make films that provide a “memory, escape and connected moment.”

“Films, concerts and sports are the great bastions of togetherness,” said Reynolds.

Throughout the night, audience members heard about the creative processes behind specific scenes of the three movies Reynolds and Levy collaborated on. Teamwork is essential to bringing their vision to life, they said.

“You can’t make anything great without enthusiasm. We want everyone on our crew to have their best time of their lives,” said Reynolds.

Following the moderated questions, McCarthy turned to the audience. Before anyone could raise their hand, he shared that someone had already sent in a question.

To much surprise, Hugh Jackman appeared on the screen. Jokingly, he expressed his disappointment over not receiving an invite to join the conversation. While the audience responded to Jackman’s sudden appearance, Reynolds and Levy expressed their surprise at Jackman’s mustache.

“I have lunch with him on Saturday and I would love for him to not bring that,” Reynolds joked.

Following the video, Reynolds and Levy fielded questions from the audience. One audience member asked Levy and Reynolds about how they get into their creative flow when writing their scenes.

Levy highlighted the ever-present possibility of creativity. One of the final scenes from one of his movies was inspired by an art history class he took at Yale.

“You don’t know where the next great idea is going to come from,” Levy said.

Reynold and Levy’s 2021 film “Free Guy” includes a reference to the Beinecke Library.

The post Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds delve into years of collaboration, filmmaking appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Levy and Reynolds have collaborated on multiple projects, including “Free Guy”, “The Adam Project” and “Deadpool and Wolverine.” The duo will discuss their multiple years of partnership and the dynamics of the film industry in a conversation moderated by film journalist Kevin McCarthy.

“I’m inspired to meet young academics and hopefully illustrate how dreams really do come true, especially when dreamt at Yale,” Reynolds wrote to the News. “I’d have given anything to attend an institution like this, but I’ve always struggled with math. Ultimately, my goal is to one day buy the entire concept of math. And then have it destroyed. Because it scares me.”

According to Levy, his love for collaboration grew during his time with the Yale Dramatic Association, also known as the Dramat.

Beyond the lessons that he learned in the classroom, Levy was inspired by the theatrical productions he acted in and directed. During his senior year, Levy directed a production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

“The fact that all three of our collaborations have turned out to be such global hits is certainly thrilling, but the PROCESS of making these movies has truly been our favorite part,” Levy wrote about his work with Reynolds.

Describing his work with the Dramat as “life-defining,” Levy remarked that the friendships he forged and lessons he learned about collaborative, creative teamwork are “still bedrock values” he tries to uphold in every production he works in.

Levy seeks to bring these similar lessons to current Yale students by bridging the gap between academic studies and professional practices.

Praising the Schwarzman Center for allowing professionals to speak with student artists, Levy hopes that students will be inspired by his stories and use them “as fuel for their own pursuits.”

Levy had previously visited Yale on Jan. 16 to discuss his experiences and challenges in working in the film industry. There, he spoke about “Crafting the Hollywood Dream.”

Many attendees of Wednesday’s event, such as Denise Pawleen Cabrera ’28, have watched films starring Reynolds and films directed and produced by Levy. 

“I’ve also worked in media production in the past, so I’m excited to listen to industry professionals as they share their experiences and pieces of advice,” Cabrera said.

In addition to speaking about his own experiences at Yale and within the film industry, Levy will talk with Reynolds about their partnership across different projects. Levy described their partnership as a “brotherhood founded upon mutual respect.”

In an email to the News, Reynolds said that his “deep respect” for Levy and his time at Yale is what inspired him to speak alongside Levy on Wednesday.

“I’m humbled to stand next to my friend, proud son of Yale, at his esteemed Alma Mater…I don’t know what ‘Alma Mater’ means in America, but in Canada it means inviting people to dinner, giving them a ten-minute head start, and then hunting them,” Reynolds jokingly wrote.

Shawn Levy first met Ryan Reynolds while directing “Real Steel.”

The post Shawn Levy ’89 returns to Yale on Wednesday. This time with Ryan Reynolds. appeared first on Yale Daily News.

In May 2024, the WHC called for graduate student film programmers to submit proposals for a semester-long film series. The WHC’s spring 2025 film series, “Palestine through Film” was chosen out of over 20 submissions, alongside the fall series “World Documentaries Today.” 

Curated by two Yale graduate students, “Palestine through Film” features historically fictitious films, documentaries and animations that depict everyday life, perspectives and sociopolitical events from 1948 to the present. The screenings are held in the Alice Cinema, located on the lower level of the Humanities Quadrangle.

“The series opens a window onto the mosaic of life in Palestine, inviting audiences to recognize not only the tragic but also the joyous realities of Palestinian experiences,” wrote Megan O’Donnell, the associate communications officer for the WHC. 

Over this past year, many students encountered aspects of Palestinian history and culture for the first time, wrote O’Donnell.

According to the student film curators, their guiding principles in selecting the films was to ensure that they “chronologically address major political moments in the occupation of Palestine and also capture Palestinian life within these moments.”

Diane Berrett Brown, deputy director of the WHC, reflected on her own experiences spending six months in the West Bank in the 1980s. 

She recalled “the stark beauty of the landscape, women talking while making date-filled cookies, groups of college students singing and dancing, fresh-baked bread being sold in the market, people traveling on green and white buses.” 

These moments speak to the range of everyday life depicted in the films. 

For instance, “The Wanted 18” — which will be screened Feb. 27 — is a story of Palestinian dairy farming in the 1980s narrated by animated cows. “Mayor” — which will be screened Mar. 6 — offers a glimpse into Palestinian society through its portrayal of Musa Hadid, the Christian mayor of Ramallah, in the form of a witty documentary. 

These narratives represent Palestine as “more than a site of conflict” and remind audiences that it’s a place “with prolific artistic and cultural production,” wrote O’Donnell. 

“Fertile Memory,” another featured work, was the first Palestinian film to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as the first full-length feature film shot by a Palestinian director in the occupied West Bank.

For O’Donnell, this “groundbreaking” work captures “the essence of the series” because it grapples with numerous core questions the series seeks to answer.     

“What is it like to live in a highly contested and deeply cherished land? How do stateless families continue to live and love, build and rebuild traditions, connect to the land, and tell their stories in the aftermath of displacement?” O’Donnell asked. 

The Humanities Quadrangle is located at 320 York St.

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Mere days after the fire began on Jan. 15, visionary American filmmaker David Lynch passed away at 78. Known for his surrealist cinematography, Lynch’s films often feature dreamlike imagery, nonlinear narratives and unsettling themes lurking beneath mundane life. 

The Institute Library, one of the city’s oldest community libraries, will donate all of the proceeds from the screenings to the Los Angeles Fire Department. 

“It’s all connected in a way,” said John Hatch, a library volunteer who was responsible for selecting the films and organizing the screenings. 

From Jan. 31 to Feb 2., the Institute Library of New Haven, held screenings of David Lynch’s films: “Eraserhead,” “Dune,” “The Elephant Man,” “Blue Velvet,” “The Straight Story” and “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.”

Lynch was a prolific director who created works in a breadth of media. Throughout his career, Lynch directed 10 feature films, 46 short films, four television series, five web series, three studio albums, 14 music videos and numerous unfinished projects. 

On Aug. 5, Lynch revealed that he had been suffering with emphysema since 2020 after years of smoking. Emphysema is a lung condition that obstructs breathing. Lynch was left homebound and directed projects remotely.

When the Sunset Fire broke out in Los Angeles on Jan. 8, Lynch was forced to evacuate from his home. Following this evacuation, his health declined. One week later, he passed away. 

“We wanted people to be able to see these movies on a big screen, as Lynch wanted them to be seen,” Eva Geertz, the operations manager of the Institute Library, wrote to the News. 

Geertz had expected other places, such as Best Video or the Yale Film Archive, to do a screening of Lynch’s works. When she realized that they had not, Geertz encouraged the Institute Library to screen the films to commemorate his life and career. 

Also inspired by Lynch’s legacy, Hatch set out to organize the screenings. 

“I always liked surrealism, and Lynch made me more conscious of surrealism in movies,” Hatch said. “When he died, I thought someone should pay tribute to him.”

According to Hatch, seating reached full capacity for the screenings of “Eraserhead” and “Blue Velvet,” while turnout was lower for the rest of the films.

“Eraserhead,” released in 1977, was Lynch’s first feature-length film, known for its unsettling ambiance and grotesque imagery. 

“When I first saw ‘Eraserhead,’ I hated it, but after watching it again at the screening, I think I finally got it,” Hatch said. 

“Blue Velvet,” released in 1986, brought Lynch great critical acclaim, earning him a second nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director and a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay. Hatch said that it was one of his favorite films directed by Lynch.

Julian Raymond ’28 attended the screening of “Blue Velvet” on Feb. 1. He said it was “magical” to see a movie he loved on the big screen again. 

“I’m grateful for the screening because it was the perfect introduction to David Lynch for my friends who haven’t seen him before,” Raymond said.

The final screening was of “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me” on Feb. 2. Released in 1992, it was a prequel to Lynch’s hit television series “Twin Peaks,” a supernatural investigative drama. 

Prior to the screening, Hatch had never seen “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.” Hatch remarked that it was far more intense than any other film of Lynch he had seen. 

“I felt like I was tripping for two and a half hours,” said Hatch.

By creating a community space in New Haven for people to appreciate Lynch’s works, the Institute Library helped communities where the director lived.

The Institute Library is located at 847 Chapel St.

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Choir has been a significant part of Brock’s time at Yale and in high school. Their fascination with conducting stemmed from singing Christmas carols and being the one who would rally everyone together to sing. 

“I realized that I want to be the one to initiate projects that have everyone come together and sing,” said Brock. 

Brock cites their high school choir director Erika Schroth as one of the reasons for applying to Yale. Schroth’s husband is Jeffrey Douma –– director of the Yale Glee Club and a choral conducting instructor at the Yale School of Music. 

Douma would eventually become Brock’s senior thesis advisor, who would give Brock “a lot of conducting instruction” not only on this particular project, but others in the past.

Brock also co-founded the Yale Undergraduate Chamber Choir — or YUCC — to provide students with more opportunities to sing choral music and learn how to conduct outside of structured courses. YUCC recently partnered up with the Yale Ballet Company for a performance of “Alice in Wonderland” at the Dome in Schwartzman Center last week. 

“We were seeking to make a few more conducting opportunities and also create a non-audition choir because those are actually pretty rare here,” said Brock. 

During Brock’s junior year, they discovered the composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi for their junior conducting recital. Inspired to conduct a piece by Mäntyjärvi, they landed on his work, “Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae.” 

“Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae” tells the musical story of the 1994 shipwreck of the MS Estonia. The piece features text from a Latin requiem, as well as a Latin translation of a newscast describing the tragedy. 

“I play the role of the newscaster, chanting the news in the style of a Catholic priest infused with journalistic detachment,” wrote Ava Dadvand ’25, the bass soloist of the piece, in an email to the News. 

“Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae” was the jumping off point that inspired Brock’s oceanic-themed recital. Wanting to channel the piece’s themes into their own project, Brock  deliberated between creating a recital on tragedy and grief or on the ocean. Brock chose the latter, but they sought to capture elements of tragedy — and beauty — of the ocean through a multifaceted narrative. 

“I tried to construct a narrative of different angles on the ocean through each of the pieces — both positive and negative, ominous and joyful,” said Brock. 

Brock’s program also includes “The Prow” by Matthew Hazzard, which they dub “the most joyful piece” in their repertoire. According to Brock, the piece evokes dolphins jumping in and out of the water, waves crashing against the sand and being on a fast-moving ship. 

Other pieces in the repertoire references literary depictions of the ocean – such as “Full Fathom Five” by Ralph Vaughan Williams, a piece based on William Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest.” It also features Isaac Lovdahl’s “Though the Great Waters Sleep,” which contains text from a poem by Emily Dickinson. 

“Though the Great Waters Sleep” is the final and titular piece of Brock’s recital. Premiered by the Yale Glee Club during Brock’s first year at Yale, they chose this piece to represent their entire program because of the word ‘though’ in the title. 

“The word ‘though’ gives the sense that the ocean represents so many different, opposing things,” said Brock. 

Dadvand said that Brock’s program speaks to the complicated feelings evoked by the sea: terror, wonder, comfort. 

Brock has enjoyed assembling their program — working with their fellow friends, singers and conductors with whom they exchange ideas. 

“It is a joy to watch Even work, drawing on their deep experience as a singer to inform a nuanced approach to choral expression, and to see their energetic and colorful personality come through in their leadership and rehearsal technique,” said Kevin Vondrak MUS ’30, Brock’s conducting coach for their recital. 

Battell Chapel is located at 400 College St.

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The Kármán line is a mathematical concept that describes the boundary separating Earth’s atmosphere from outer space. Atterbury first came across the concept while reading “The Wind and Beyond,” an autobiography written by mathematician Theodore von Kármán. 

“The title really intrigued me because it got me thinking about what’s beyond the wind,” said Atterbury. “I had an interest in the Kármán line very early on because it’s this boundary that’s human and mathematically constructed, but it influences national borders, which are so finite and solid.” 

The Kármán line has been at the center of controversy in discussions regarding the lack of legally and politically recognized boundaries in space — particularly in the wake of space tourism. 

Atterbury’s collection was reviewed by poet Adrienne Raphel in the Paris Review, a prestigious English-language magazine. 

“Reading The Kármán Line is a trip – to the edges of space, genre, gender, geography, and sense,” wrote Raphel, in an email to the News. “Atterbury warps time and space — The Kármán Line has its own ineffable yet irrefutable laws of physics.” 

Atterbury’s inspiration for the book’s setting — the American Southwest — is drawn from their own experiences living and growing up in New Mexico. Through these experiences, they were able to witness firsthand the effects of colonization on Indigenous communities. 

In particular, they were drawn to the way that scientific research has been intertwined with continued displacement of Indigenous lands. 

“My parents moved to Shiprock, New Mexico, which is part of the Navajo nation, so my upbringing was within these colonial contexts. I was just very attuned to the different cultural histories here and the contested ways that people talk about history,” said Atterbury. 

Atterbury cites the involvement of New Mexico in the Manhattan Project and this nuclear history in their book, as well as how physics concepts are still incorporated in the production and execution of U.S. defense systems. 

Their inspiration for “The Kármán Line” also emerged from accounting for their own identity and positionality in the American Southwest. According to Atterbury, this work resulted from them asking themselves how they “respond to colonial history with [their] own body.” 

As a lecturer in the gender and sexuality department at the University of New Mexico, Atterbury was influenced by queer history, especially in the context of Indigenous history. Much of our notions of gender and sexuality are “informed by colonial dynamics,” they said. 

“We inherited a lot of binary thinking from European colonization,” said Atterbury. “It’s affected the way we move through the world — trying to undo those colonial narratives — and as a queer person, to learn how to find new language and live differently.” 

According to Atterbury, writing has given them a space to explore “new ways of knowing” themselves. 

“The Kármán Line” opens with a list of various places — from cities to scientific laboratories to commercial hubs to mountain ranges to bodies in the cosmos. For Atterbury, these widely different locations describe a multilayered, overlapping way of relating to place and identity. 

Part of that is due to social media, said Atterbury. 

“We’re never just where we are,” said Atterbury. “We’re constantly being constructed by and imposed on, and in touch with so many different places and contexts at once. We never are just limited to a singular moment or experience. It’s very simultaneous, so places that are referenced in the book are different historical markers that I touch on.” 

Atterbury’s own life has been marked by various places — moving from New Mexico to New Haven to New York City to back to New Mexico. While Atterbury misses the big city, they have found joy in working with students with similar upbringings, who “are trying to piece together the colonial history [of New Mexico].” 

In an email to the News, Atterbury’s editor, Alyssa Perry of Rescue Press, commented on the simultaneity of the book. 

 “The Kármán Line is oblique and exact, sensuous and distant, serious and playful, lyric and direct, tethered at once in past, future, and present.” She added, “It’s so fun to move from declarative sentences to archives to a feelings wheel in the space of a page.” 

This idea of simultaneity is also present in the way Atterbury views poetry. 

They channel this simultaneity in their teaching of queer theory classes, where this element encourages students to depart from “conventional writing forms.” 

“You can have something said in multiple ways, or you can use abstraction, which makes it feel like there are many more tools that words offer,” they said. 

More specifically, this offers a way for them to break free of traditional Western rational thought in writing, which imposes ideals that “we don’t realize we’re even subscribing to.” Breaking free from these conventional forms was an apt and necessary step in writing histories of queerness in the Southwest. 

“Indigenous people didn’t identify with Western ideas of gender and sexuality. Additionally, during the Manhattan Project, a lot of queer life was suppressed, but it always finds a way. Even in spaces of severe repression there are ways for people to live their lives,” Atterbury reflected. 

“The Kármán Line” was released on October 15. 

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