Columbia Shines at the 2025 Telluride Film Festival
The 52nd Telluride Film Festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado during Labor Day weekend saw Columbia Filmmakers and faculty shine. See below for a list of projects helmed by filmmakers from the School of the Arts:
All That’s Left Of You
Written and Directed by Cherien Dabis '04
Official Selection
For her third movie as a writer and director, Dabis chose to center the experiences of a Palestinian family spanning three generations from 1948 to 2022. All That’s Left of You follows a Palestinian teen that gets swept up into a West Bank protest and his mother who recounts the family story of hope, courage, and relentless struggle that led to this fateful moment. The film was part of the prestigious surprise screenings Telluride is famous for and was also selected as the official Jordanian entry for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards.
Extremist
Written and Directed by Alexander Molochnikov '25
Produced by Jean Chapiro '25
Student Prints
Directed by Molochnikov as his thesis film, Extremist follows a young Russian artist who makes an anti-war statement by swapping food labels with pacifist messages in a Moscow supermarket, leading to her arrest and the threat of a 10-year prison sentence. The film won big at the 2025 Bafta Student Awards, taking home the Live Action Award and the Special Jury Award. The film was also awarded the National Board of Review Student Grant.
Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire
Co-Produced by Professor Annette Insdorf
Backlot Section
Eighty years after his family’s deportation and the wholesale slaughter of European Jewry, Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire explores the man behind the searing memoir Night. The narration is in his own voice, revealing the known and unknown Wiesel—his conflicts, memories, and his legacy as one of the most public survivors of the Holocaust. With unique access to personal archives, and using original interviews with his wife Marion and son Elisha, the film has a unique intimacy. With hand-painted animation by Joel Orloff and a score by Osvaldo Golijov, Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire illuminates the survivor, writer, teacher and public figure.
In addition to serving as co-producer of this enthralling documentary on perhaps the world’s most eloquent witness to the Holocaust, Insdorf also moderated several panels: Cinematic Adaptations of Obsession, featuring Edward Berger’s Ballad of the Small Player; Films about Male Artists: Wounded Masculinity, showcasing Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet; and History Through the Lens of Family, which highlighted the spectacular Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, among others. Insdorf also moderated the post-screening discussion of All I Had Was Nothingness with director Guillaume Ribot.