Three short documentaries produced in a Rural Humanities Seminar, taught by PMA Associate Professor Austin Bunn, are headed to film festivals this fall. The Mellon Foundation-funded course, “Documenting Rural Lives” (SHUM 4800/PMA 4450), focused on regional and rural stories from Central New York and the Finger Lakes. Ten graduate and undergraduate students were given $2,000 each to produce original documentaries and collaborate with professional cinematographers.
'Farm Grrl Folk Punk'
Bunn’s short documentary film, “Farm Grrrl Folk Punk,” has been selected for the Sound Unseen: Music + Film Festival. The film was created and edited by Bunn and produced by students in the class with cinematography by Rafael Bitanga ’23. The film festival will take place in Minneapolis and Rochester, Minn., and Austin, Texas in November and December.
The film follows Motherwort, a fierce four-piece band based in Ithaca, with a unique blend of folk-inspired punk energy. "Motherwort is a band of characters — female farmers, house-flippers, and herbalists — and I knew they would make a compelling short for a subject documentary,” said Bunn. “I decided to experiment with a collaborative production; the students in ‘Documenting Rural Lives’ ran the shoots with the band members, developed the questions, conducted the interviews and gathered heaps of b-roll. We used a professional videographer and Cornell grad Rafael Bitanga '23 as our primary cinematographer.”
After production, some students worked as assistant editors, assembling the selects and others as editors, trying to knit the project together. “Collaborative editing proved incredibly challenging — it just takes so much time, sitting with the footage, to find a shape — but they were able to build short sparky sequences,” Bunn said. “During the summer, I stepped in to finalize the edit. I'm really proud of the work everyone did, and thrilled that Sound Unseen accepted it to screen.”
Youngiee Quennell, a vocalist, fiddle and acoustic guitar player in Motherwort, commented on the experience of being a subject in this film along with her bandmates: “We had never done anything like this before, and it was fascinating to experience the process from ideas to finished film. I loved connecting with the students; their enthusiasm was contagious, and they were a lot of fun to work with.”
“Austin did a fantastic job weaving together all the random bits and pieces of our lives into a cohesive narrative,” Quennell continued. “We all understood the direction we wanted to take as a band, but seeing it reflected so clearly as our story was a joy to watch. From the beginning, our mission has been to inspire and connect with others, and I hope this is the takeaway from the film.”
Motherwort will be sharing a sneak peak of the documentary at their show at Angry Mom Records on Saturday, Nov. 2, at 8 p.m. Milk Cousin and BCME will also be performing.
'Freedom Flier'
Another film that emerged from the class is “Freedom Flier,” a short documentary biopic directed by Cami Armendariz ’24. The film has been selected for the Black Bear Film Festival, which takes place Oct. 19 in Milford, PA.
“Freedom Flier” chronicles JC Marquez’s lifelong passion for pigeons, showcasing how his love for the birds developed and continues to flourish. The film draws a parallel between JC's family's escape from Cuba on the Johnson Freedom Flights and his enduring affection for his 200+ flying creatures.
“Austin’s Spring 2024 Rural Humanities Seminar was an incredible experience that really allowed me to go down a rabbit hole of learning about film production,” said Armendariz. “I was able to take the reins on a topic that interested me and that I knew nothing about (pigeon breeding) and run with it. This opportunity opened so many doors to the film space and I have immensely enjoyed working on my other passion film projects since.”
"Cami's touching film exemplifies the ambition of the Rural Humanities Seminar to explore, with delicacy and genuine curiosity, the rich and colorful lives of those who live outside urban centers and suburbia,” said Bunn. “It takes courage to step this far off campus and into the world. In this film, she makes a brilliant cinematic connection between her subject's immigration story and his beloved pigeons’ natural homing instincts."
'Synchotron Symphony'
A third film that emerged from this class is “Synchrotron Symphony,” a short documentary directed by Shuqian Lyu ‘25. The film was selected for the Raw Science Film Festival, which took place Oct. 5 in New York City.
“In this poetic and artistic portrayal of Cornell's underground accelerator, I have captured the beauty and colors of scientific machinery, cords, and structures,” Lyu said “The underground scenes in the lab are juxtaposed with the rigorous, dynamic and physical scenes of football training and games aboveground at Schoellkopf Field. My aim is to showcase the Wilson Lab from a different perspective by giving the audience a sensory experience, both visually and aurally, of the synchrotron underground and the football training above. Through this immersion in the underground world of steel, we ask ourselves what we see in the future of science and find new meanings and perspectives in scientific research.”
"Shuqian's short film brings the subterranean work of the synchrotron to the surface — literally — contrasting the ‘collisions’ of football practice with the eerie, electronic stillness of the particle collider,” said Bunn. “Rural life sometimes looks like this: high science and sports, juxtaposed."
Austin Bunn is an associate professor at PMA. Read more about his work.
Cami Armendariz ’24 is a Cornell alum with an environment & sustainability major, and a double minor in education and anthropology. Her professional and academic journey has been all about understanding our planet, its diverse cultures and the imperative of holistic education. She has enjoyed communicating knowledge through video production while harnessing the power of technology to amplify untold and unique stories for a more sustainable and inclusive future.
Shuqian Lyu ’25 is a director, cinematographer and scholar at Cornell University. She majors in performing and media arts, information science and the Robert S. Harrison College Scholar Program, with minors in Business, media studies, and anthropology. Shuqian has a strong interest in interdisciplinary research. Her College Scholar honors thesis is titled "Documenting Crypto Extraction: A VR Sensory Ethnography on Bitcoin Mining in Upstate New York." Her first award-winning documentary short, “The Dream Cafe,” was released in 2019, and she has since become an aspiring director-cinematographer in both narrative and documentary filmmaking. Throughout her journey at Cornell, she has developed a deep interest in experimental and environmental cinema at PMA.
Read more about Motherwort.
Read more about the Sound Unseen Film + Music Festival.
Read more about the Black Bear Film Festival.
Read more about the Raw Science Film Festival.
Beatrice Fenyes-Gartenberg is communications coordinator for the Department of Performing and Media Arts.
