Sussex University campus has come to life the past day or two with a variety of events that prove to show this toothless giant still has some bite left in it. A few weeks ago Sussex SU released a statement about the imprisonment of a 2nd year student Zenon Mitchell-Kotsakis who has been sentenced to 15 months for violent disorder during the original 2010 student demonstration in London. This statement came from left field as up until now there had been no word from the union on Zenon’s case and the statement was released 4 days after he was sentenced.

The news of the 2011 Student Academy Awards has be one that has made us all at TNC jump up in union to celebrate the huge achievement by such a diverse and talented group of students filmmakers. Their passion, skill, and ability leaves us speechless the more we see and hear from them.

Chris Jarvis, nominated in the animation category for “The Birds Upstairs,” New York University. Already a multiple award winning film this is the first Oscar nomination and one that is certainly going to be joined by others. There is something incredibly wonderful about his work that flicks a nod here and there to the modern French master Sylvain Chomet yet remains beautiful and original in it’s own right.

A stunning achievement yet again by a truly amazing student filmmaker. To watch the trailer and for more information on Chris work you can go to his website HERE.

How did you get into filmmaking has this always been a passion?

Well, having attended an accelerated high school for math and science, that was my primary focus throughout most of my early life. It was not until my senior year of high school, when I was exposed to the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, that I imagined pursuing a career as a filmmaker.

What was the first film/director that inspired you?

Well Since I already mentioned Tarkovsky, I would have to say Von Trier or Solondz – both of whom have crafted films that continue to influence me as a person and shape my contentions about film form.

Tell us about your film, what is your approach, how do you come up with your projects?

‘The Birds Upstairs’ was my first animated film, and was largely an experiment in the form, having never taken a class or attempted on before it- I am much more accustom to live action. Since it was necessary the characters move with an arthritic stoicism, I thought this would help hide my lack of craft, and I feel it did. Honestly, the idea emerged being exposed the somewhat indulgent and high class social life of adults around me as a child.

Very early on I developed a scathing dislike of artificial, bourgeoisie mentalities, and the premise of a couple who indulge this lifestyle in order to conceal something horrific about themselves they cannot face, which is of course the fact they’re dead, intrigued me.

Your film nominated for a Student Academy Award, a truly magnificent achievement, have you had time to let this settle in?

Not really! It still seems rather surreal.

What was did it feel like when you got the news?

It feels wonderful – I’m very grateful the film will reach a wider audience because of the nomination. In my experience with any exclusionary judging of art, I have recognised that unlike some sports or most competitive endeavours, this process is capricious and unpredictable. I am glad to be on the benefiting side, and remain humble to all the great works of art that may have not gotten recognised this year by the academy.

What have been the challengers you have faced, what help/advice have you sought?

Getting funding is always difficult, and of course the struggle with yourself to get the work you want to get done made. But if a conceit is important enough to you, you always find a way.

Things are going so well for you, you feeling the pressure?

I am, but I try to focus on my work and take it one film at a time.

What do you want people to take away from your film?

The idea of being in denial enough to a point where you are unable to recognise yourself is really what unites the film for me. The reason birds were chosen for the film, as opposed to human beings or some other animal, is because of their relationship with their own reflection. I remember as a child hearing the sound of a bird hitting a window and dropping dead to the ground. It was so quizzical to me – that it was the last thing it saw, as if it could not bear to face itself.

That for me is the tragedy of the Birds Upstairs, that this couple, in denial of the fact that they’re dead, (whether interpreted literally or metaphoric of them being conceited or shallow) cannot recognise their own son until they have killed it.

What has been your biggest sacrifice or difficulties that you have encountered?

Undoubtedly, finding the time and diligence to write and becoming vulnerable during that short window of time.

What advice would you give other filmmakers?

“Every story is a love story” – Todd Solondz

Finally, what are you working on now?

I am working on a live action short with Danish actress Stine Fischer Christensen I’ve been preparing for almost three years.

The news of the 2011 Student Academy Awards has be one that has made us all at TNC jump up in union to celebrate the huge achievement by such a diverse and talented group of students filmmakers. Their passion, skill, and ability leaves us speechless the more we see and hear from them.

Damon Mohl is nominated in the ‘Alternative’ category for his stunning movie “The Dust Machine” and you can see from his stills he has a vision that leaves a smile on your face…this is a great introduction to a pretty wonderful filmmaker. Part Two will follow tomorrow.

How did you get into filmmaking has this always been a passion?

I have been always been involved in drawing, painting, making and building things from a very young age. During my undergraduate work in Philadelphia at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts I was primarily focused on large scale representational oil painting and drawing. Building sets and mechanical sculptural props, writing and studying the craft of film making came a bit later for me.

But I have always loved cinema and in many ways it has always been the most fascinating and exciting to me because it is a combination of so many different creative mediums. Since I have devoted my time to making images and my work has always had narrative threads within it, there was absolutely now way I would not eventually explore making my own films.

What was the first film/director that inspired you?

The first couple of films that really stayed with me would have had to have been Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God as well as Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker.

Those films were really profound experiences early on for me. I could easily add to that seeing Stan Breakage’s work for the first time as an undergraduate in Philadelphia along with many of the other avant-garde experimental film makers who were using cinema as a very personal poetic visionary form of expression. On a side note I was able to meet Werner Herzog my last year as a graduate student at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

It was definitely one of the highlights of my graduate school career. He was there for the annual Conference on World Affairs to participate on a few panels and in Roger Ebert’s cinema interruptus screenings. One morning I asked Werner if he had a few minutes if he would come over and check out my thesis show at the Universities’ Museum and to my surprise he said yes. I even had the chance to show him an extended work-in-progress three-minute trailer/preview for my film. At that point all I had finished was that trailer, but all the sets had been built and all the sequences had been shot. When I told him how many hours of footage I had he said “That’s way too much. You’re going to slow with this. Promise me you will finish it soon.” I promised but post still took me a really long time.

I just had so much footage to go through and so many ideas. I approached the project with a lot of experimentation at every stage from pre-production right into post and I really had to live with it for awhile in order to abandon all of my preconceived notions and discover what the film wanted to be. Anyways he was really encouraging with what I showed him and it was great meeting him, the timing could not have been more perfect or inspiring.

Tell us about your film, what is your approach, how do you come up with your projects?

With this question I could really start to ramble so I will just focus on the initial idea for The Dust Machine. I was sitting in an amazing film theory class on cinema and wonder when this idea suddenly came to me. It was one of those expansive absurd ideas that feels like a lightening bolt. Essentially, it was a question; What if I built a room that had an alarm and a light on the wall and when the alarm went off and the light lit up, dust and dirt poured out of a tube in the wall onto a white tile floor?

That idea opened up a number of questions that I then had to answer. Where did the dirt come from? Who was in the room? How did they collect the dirt? Where did they deposit it after they collected it? Where did it then go? That initial idea just kept growing and growing and it was exciting enough for me to want to make into a short film and basically the primary focus of my graduate school career for my remaining two years.

In graduate school there are just so many directions one can go creatively, so that was a really big decision for me; to focus so early on making just this one short film, because once I started building sets there would be no changing my mind or going back or deciding I wanted to do something else for my thesis project, I would have too much invested in it. I’m really happy I made that initial decision because once a started I never did looked back or even have the slightest notion that I should be doing something else.

Your film has been nominated for a Student Academy Award, a truly magnificent achievement, have you had time to let this settle in?

I would say as much as it can. Judging and awards by their very nature are subjective and I am positive that there were many other amazing student works that my film was up against in the Region 2 Alternative Category. So I’m just honoured that with the regional round, the judges saw something about what I made that stood out and resonated with them.

What did it feel like when you got the news?

I was of course really excited. I spent a long time making this film so to get this type of acknowledgement for my work has been really rewarding in itself. As they say, it is a honor just to be nominated and that really is true. Artists and filmmakers get use to rejection because one is often applying to many things at once: grant opportunities, juried exhibitions, proposals for projects, film festivals, etc. So there are always rejection emails, but the trick is not to take it personally and get discouraged.

Believe in what you are doing and keep applying because occasionally things go the other way and it is just an amazing feeling when it does. You really never do know what tomorrow will bring if you just keep creating and just keep trying.

On another note, I spent a good deal of time near the end of 2010 building an extensive website if anyone is interested in seeing some more of my work, that would be great if they stopped by for a visit: DAMONMOHL.COM

London: Facebook has once again been a catalyst of sorts in mobilising the, at times, single-minded student protest movement that continues to try and find its way in the broader scheme of University fee increases,  Coalition Government cuts and the so-called “attack” on higher education. The latest protest to spring up has been that by London Metropolitan University students who have staged a sit-in at the graduate school on Holloway Road in response to the University closing 70% of its courses.

The University currently offer 557 courses and their aim is to cut this to 160, no matter what the protesters are saying it is clear that the University is finally coming clean and realising that they have been short-changing students by ‘offering’ too much choice.

This has created a variety of issues for the University as many hundreds and thousands of students already gained a place in 2011 September enrolment now face a scrum to find places at other Universities. Yet there is a great deal of missinformation about and the University have yet to full announce what their plans are and what their responsibility is to the current students who technically have a contract with that institution. It would be advisable for students to read the contract they signed on joining the university in 1st year.

But are the actions being taken by London Met one that other Universities around the country should consider introducing? The University claim that the aim in decreasing the amount of courses on offer will give students greater value for money and will also stop students quitting their courses early.

The comments on the Evening Standards small piece to highlight the minority student group taking part in the protest – the ES say that 90 students took part in the overnight sit-in yet London Met has 28,000+ students – have not been very positive:

“Students stage campus sit-in as hundreds of courses get the axe”. Hooray for common sense.

- Charly,

With all these courses disappearing, will this lead to a shortage of hairdressers in London?

I suppose they could reverse the decision, but from the photo at the top, it looks like they have already started knocking down the unwanted buildings.

- martin, London

Oh my god what will they do if they miss a lecture on interpreting Soap Operas and the social impact of Jeremy Kyle!!????

- Mark, London

No comment here on how NLU had to repay large sums of money back to the government because of falsely over-stating its number of students.The empire-building by ambitious academics that created this monstrous titanic of an organisation decimated the valuable work done by many of its component colleges, damaging student options and career choices as a result. The students have realised too late that they have been cynically sold a false prospectus by people who should have been preparing their future.

- mdj e10,

With luck, high on the list of axed courses is the one on “How to get out of actual education by going on protests”

- Rogan, Irving

Thursday’s “Protest”

NUS officer Claire Locke said up to 70 students occupied the graduate centre on Holloway Road, in north London, on Wednesday night.

With such little information about and with so few lecturers and students (close to 10,000 will be affected) actually taking part in these protests and sit-ins it is hard to understand why the student body has not been working with the university to deal with some of the bigger issues that it is facing. In 2009 an audit from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) found that the University had been misinforming them on the drop-our rates meaning they had been overpaid by some £50 million.

This caused UCU and NUS to jumo on their higher than high high-horse denouncing the Government at the time and claiming that this was a travesty, yet again, on education and on the students, but nothing on the obvious practice of some universities of ‘cooking the books’ in order to get more funding. Though this might not be the case in all situations it can not be ignored that institutions with such a wealth of experience would, or could, make such an easy and avoidable mistake.

As a result the university has had to repay £36 million and the Vice-Chancellor Malcolm Gillies has said that the course cuts are part of plans to ensure the university can meet future demand in “very difficult economic times”.

Many of the courses being cut had “single-digit enrolments”, he argued.

Unless the 10,000 students who are going to be affected by this action are part of the movement then, much like most of the other movements all over the UK, nothing is going to come of it. They have slowly taken on some advice that TNC has passed to them, but one of the biggest issue they will face is how ‘reasonable’ they are going to be.

If the Vice-Chancellor is correct and some of these courses only have single digit enrolments then surly it makes sense to close these courses? The list of demands that the students are asking for seem unrealistic at best and why has this action come so late in the game, it really shouldn’t have been ignored the actions taking by the government to reclaim the overpayment that the University had been given.

Student Movement UK – Or How To Cause A Stink For Your Own Good

This new addition to the student occupation ‘movement’ is at risk of only hearing what it wants to hear and only saying what it wants to say. There is, from what I can gather reading their Facebook posts or their blog, no real willingness to admit that mistakes have been made and that both sides are at fault. Causes simply have not been attracting the big numbers and the University simply offered too many courses meaning that some where only ever going to have a small enrolment.

There are a few people on the front-line, lecturers or current students of these so-called courses that are going to be cut and are going to have a huge impact on our society as a whole. There is no word from the lecturers justifying their tiny numbers of students, what is on offer, and how students benefit. There is also no word from the students, past or present (or even future) who are taking these courses, and what DO students gain?

Most BA’s run at 3-9 hours a week, with over 5 months of vacation time, and very little contact time with the school. The debate that is being raised isn’t simply about education being a right and free for all, this isn’t going to be the case, now or ever, that ship sailed when New Labour introduced fees. But the debate should be about just WHAT students are getting, what they are being taught, and how. Services that are on offer, and a real face of the University. All we get is the white-washed views, opinions, likes etc, very rarely do you hear the ‘facts’ of what it is like going to University in 2011.

Students need to get a real grip and understand that a majority of all that has gone on with higher education, the fees, the increases, and the cuts that Universities are imposing after living the highlife for so long is, in fact, our own making. Too few students get behind these movements and even then its very fleeting. You have final year students mixed with mature students mixed with art students who need a purpose to try and get some ‘suffrage’ and it comes together like a cockeyed comune. No real understanding of what has happened and why it is happening, an over justification for the courses without any evidence or proof, and less that 5% of the student body taking part.

We where all too passive during the initial fees debate, the student body tried but was a sad display. And with our sole reliance on NUS as the so-called national voice of students has meant that we get sold out at any juncture they so wish giving a democratic student body no real voice in the decisions they make on our behalf.

It is now time for a change in tactics and for a much more centralised and organised approach with students less willing to challenge the dragon – in this case lets hypothesise that London Met opens its books and we discover more irregularities and single numbers of students on courses that is not ‘value for money’ for anyone then perhaps more swinging cuts will take place.