30 professionals. 45 students. One semester. Two feature films.
Student positions still available for Winter/Spring 2026!
Visit our Deadlines & Applications page to apply!
Or email nicoleldoerges@gmail.com
OUR STORY
In 2006, award-winning independent filmmaker Jay Craven and his 32-year film and arts non-profit, Kingdom County Productions, created a semester-long film intensive at Marlboro College - called Movies from Marlboro (2006 - 2016), then Cinema Sarah Lawrence (2016-2020) at Sarah Lawrence College before landing on Semester Cinema in 2022 with Kingdom Couty Productions as its producer and Vermont State University as its accrediting institution.
Our program has provided invaluable and unforgettable experience to 203 students from 23 colleges and universities around the world. We have also produced six independent films—featuring Academy Award nominees Bruce Dern, Genevieve Bujold and Kris Kristofferson; Golden Globe winner, Jacqueline Bisset; Emmy winner, Gordon Clapp; Tony nominee, Jessica Hecht; three-time Independent Spirt Award nominee, Gary Farmer and emerging actors including Diane Guerrero, Christian Coulson, Jerry O’Connell, Susan Kelechi Watson, Morgan Wolk, Cameron Scoggins, Aurelia Thierree and many others. These films have played nationally in theatres, at festivals, on Netflix, Amazon, Showtime and more than 25 countries worldwide.
Semester Cinema is an innovative film intensive program that provides a unique experiential learning opportunity in creative collaboration that is unparalleled in the United States.
Overview
Semester Cinema provides a rare learning adventure that is firmly grounded in filmmaking and the liberal arts. Our program is open to students from all accredited colleges and universities - and takes place every two years, during the Winter/Spring semester. We accept a maximum of 45 students who will collaborate with 28 professionals in all aspects of preparation, production and post-production. Students receive up to 18 college credits AND professional screen credit listed on IMDB.
We kick off the semester with a week-long excursion to the Sundance Film Festival where students navigate screenings, filmmaker Q & A’s, music events and the highly charged atmosphere of America’s most celebrated showcase of indie filmmaking.
We then move to our filming location for 7 weeks of daily classes, hands-on workshops, master classes with visiting artists, field trips, and more - all in preparation for the six-week production of our feature-length film.
During production, students work under the mentorship of 28 professionals, in a wide range of positions, from wardrobe supervisor and camera operator to script supervisor, set decorator, prop master, assistant editor and second assistant director.
Many students arrive with a passion for film or theater - but little technical filmmaking background. And they often choose to work in film jobs they didn’t even know existed. That’s OK! We create a comfortable learning environment where students are encouraged and supported to take risks and try new things and, along the way, develop new skills in critical thinking, creative collaboration, problem solving, flexibility and improvisation - and much more.
Experiential Learning & Collaboration
Semester Cinema provides vigorous experiential learning opportunities that are informed by education pioneer John Dewey’s inspired call for intensive learning “that enlarges meaning through shared experience and joint action.”
We also draw ideas from Brazilian educator Paolo Friere who used extensive and ever-evolving dialogue as the center of the learning process, where the learner is trusted and respected as an equal, based on their own unique voice, knowledge, education and lived experience. We have faith in students and what they bring to each project. And we believe it is essential that students recognize the the individual and shared results of their work and its contribution to the larger whole - as proof of their capacity to learn, create and imagine
The program adapts recognized works of literary fiction and/or history in order to provide students with the maximum amount of material from which they can interpret, discuss, debate and propose revisions, independent of our screenplay. Adaptation also bolsters the humanities/liberal arts aspects of our learning program by providing literary, social and historical dimensions rooted in the original work.
Through our careful and imaginative script development we enlarge the platform for characterization, narrative construction, theme, tone, setting and more.
Students on past productions have worked as actors, writers, script supervisors, unit directors, second unit cinematographers, 2nd and 2nd-2nd assistant directors, assistant editors, prop masters, production coordinators, producers, best boy grips and electrics, still photographers, wardrobe supervisors, set dressers, location managers, make-up artists, scenic painters and many more.
A singular and enduring experience of collaboration characterizes our time together in Semester Cinema.