MESA 3111

Samhita is great and passionate about film culture. She's always willing to be of help and is an outstanding teacher.

As other reviews have mentioned, Samhita changes the syllabus a lot and will tell you the work you need to complete the night before class starts. However, it was an unprecedented year with COVID and not knowing whether the film festival will be in-person this year (so that did play a factor, but it was still frustrating at times).

Other than that, there really were no issues with this course. You have to do readings and watch films, which really weren't that all interesting. Be aware, not one film will be in English.

All in all, this is an easy A, but you will not enjoy yourself (unless you are passionate about the international film circuit). If you want the A, do the work and you'll have it, though be prepared to not have that much fun.

Professor Sunya was really kind and accommodating and clearly is super intelligent and knowledgeable about film festivals and films in general. The structure of the class was definitely not very clear and dates often changed and syllabus changes happened regularly. The class was mostly short responses to films or readings, and a few pop quizzes. The biggest project was the film festival portfolio and project where you have to work in a group to make a paper and presentation. You also have to volunteer at the film festival and write 5 film responses to films you watch outside of class, 3 of which are at the film festival. Definitely take the class if you’re interested in the subject but be prepared for it to be not very structured. #tCFfall2021

Professor Sunya is a very kind, chill, and educated professor. I can tell she has a lot of experience with film festivals and a lot of knowledge to share. However, she was always changing her syllabus without telling us, changing assignments that would be due the next day and not tell us until the last minute, and she would barely ever have a place to turn things in so we had to email her our work, which was not very assuring because I often wouldn't get responses to emails so I had no clue if she saw what I sent her. She also never updated grades throughout the semester. I often didn't know what would be due the next class until the night before which was frustrating. In class lectures felt like they would ramble on and were hard to pay attention to, though what she's talking about is very insightful and could be found interesting. However, she's a very easy grader so this class was an easy A. You have to volunteer at the virginia film festival and do a research project on a film festival, but these assignments weren't challenging. I would recommend the class if you're interested in film festivals and want an easy A or need to fulfill a requirement.

One of the easiest classes I've taken! Professor Sunya was really nice, but sometimes she would get frustrated in class when people wouldn't speak up or engage in discussion. The main issue was that the class was too long, and we weren't watching films in class so we were expected to discuss and remain engaged the whole time, which was a bit difficult. I'd definitely recommend this class if you need something to fill up your credits, get an easy A, or just are interested in learning about film festivals. There's not much work to do and the professor is pretty good.