The Whitney Humanities Center is seeking graduate student film programmers for Films at the Whitney’s fall 2025 and spring 2026 series. Inaugurated in 2009, Films at the Whitney has been a cornerstone of Yale’s vibrant film culture for more than fifteen years. During this time, the program has supported a wide range of screenings, from Hollywood and world cinema classics to documentaries and rare, experimental films.
Last year, Films at the Whitney embraced a collaborative, student-driven model of film programming. Instead of relying on a single curator or top-down programming, we invited graduate students to propose semester-long film series.
This approach benefits graduate students and audiences alike. As Marc Francis, FAS manager of film programming, explains, “Having graduate students curate film series brings a much-needed generational freshness to Yale’s film culture. Student curation indicates the scholarly, political, and stylistic interests of an emerging generation of thinkers.” At the same time, the selected graduate students gain invaluable professional and intellectual experience. Not only do they develop practical skills and learn about the “sometimes Sisyphean labor that goes into putting together a film series”—from developing the initial idea to gaining access to rights and licensing to running publicity campaigns—but they also get “an opportunity to situate the research and learning they are doing at Yale within the lexicon of cinema. By extension, they learn how to bridge their highly intricate knowledge with the broader community and public.”
This new selection process, which began with a call for proposals in May 2024, resulted in the fall 2024 series World Documentaries Today and the spring 2025 program Palestine through Film. These two series were selected from more than twenty submissions.
“This year’s winners checked off an impossible number of boxes on a list of criteria for a strong proposal,” says Marc Francis. “They illustrated the relevance and timeliness of their programs while also demonstrating a deep understanding of their subject matter and historical context; they carefully selected films that fit together as a cohesive whole and made a compelling case for how the series would resonate with a broad audience across the humanities and beyond.” Perhaps most importantly, these proposals engaged with key issues in the humanities today, demonstrating a keen understanding of both the overarching mission of the Whitney Humanities Center and the specific goals of Films at the Whitney.
The selection committee is now welcoming proposals for the 2025–26 academic year. Proposals may be submitted by individual graduate students or by a team of two (and no more than two). Applicants should propose a coherent series of up to five films; the series should be distinctive yet realizable in terms of resources (e.g., screening spaces and print/DCP accessibility) and funds (i.e., generally within the standard range of costs to put on a film screening). The series should have a thread that unites the different films; it might be a filmmaker retrospective, or it might be organized around a theme, motif, technique, or political, social, and/or cultural formation.
Proposals should include the following:
- A program description explaining the topic or through line, its significance and potential audience, and its contribution to the Yale community’s goals of research and teaching;
- A list of five films, with synopsis, year, runtime, format (print or DCP), distributor, and country;
- A short bio that includes email, department, status in the Ph.D. program, and relevant programming or curatorial experience. (Applicants must be enrolled in a Ph.D. program in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.)
The committee will select two proposals, one for each semester; selected students will be paid for their labor. The graduate student programmers will work closely with FAS manager of film programming, Marc Francis, in consultation with WHC deputy director, Diane Berrett Brown, and with logistical support from the WHC staff.
Please send proposals to Marc Francis (marc.francis@yale.edu) by Friday, April 4, 2025. The selected proposals will be announced via email to all applicants in early May.