Zoom-In is a dynamic thesis showcase presented by the MA Film and Media Studies Class of 2025. The eighth annual conference will be held at the Lenfest Center for the Arts. This year’s program features a rich lineup of individual presentations, a special keynote speaker, interactive Q&As, and special film screenings.
The 2025 conference highlights a diverse range of topics, from mediated realities and technological imaginaries to visual aesthetics, cinematic environments, and the evolving forms of media representation. Across two days, participants will closely look into classical film and media studies issues, while exploring contemporary questions about digital technologies, environmental aesthetics, and global cinematic trends.
Keynote Speaker: Neta Alexander, Film and Media Studies alum and Assistant Professor of Film and Media at Yale University
Schedule
Friday, February 14
Welcome and Introduction
12:00 PM Introduction by Nico Baumbach, Film and Media Studies
Module 1: Mediated Realities and Technological Imaginaries
12:30 PM Presentations (with Q&As)
Ann Wang [via Zoom], Flattening Deep Time: Archaeologies of Extraction in Post-Mao China’s Polar Media Practices
Jingyi Zhang, The Visibility and Invisibility of Operational Images
Jiacheng Li, Burn Book 2.0: When Gossip Jumped Off the Reel and Into the Feed
Aileen Min, Digital Water and Generative Absence: Reimagining East Asian Aesthetics in Digital Art
3:00 PM Break
3:30 PM Keynote Speaker Session by Neta Alexander: Horizontal Media and Sleep Apps
5:30 PM Break/Dinner
7:00 PM Film Screening: Cemetery of Splendour (2015)
Runtime: 2 hr 2 mins
Saturday, February 15
Module 2: Visual Aesthetics and Cinematic Environments
11:00 AM Introduction by Lily Ge, current student, Film and Media Studies
11:05 AM Presentations (with Q&As)
Matthew Huh, Comparative Pastiche and Nostalgia in Contemporary Hollywood: The Lion King Dangers and Spider-Verse Reinventions
Bojun Chen, Listening to Disruption: Queerness, Feminism, and Tactility in the Films of Lucrecia Martel
Lifei Cheng, From Archive to Avant-garde: Godard, Jude, and the Radical Aesthetic of Essayistic Cinema
1:00 PM Break/Lunch
Module 3: Cinematic/Media Forms and Representation
2:00 PM Presentations (with Q&As)
Qianhui Ma [via Zoom], Affective Landscapes and Gendered Marginality: Film and Media Perspectives on Memory, Labor, and Social Change in Northeast China's Layoff Era
Graham Paull, The Computer Generated Animal: Digital Animation and the Negotiation of Animal Life
Winnie Wang, Beyond Intersubjectivity: The Sublime and Beautiful in New Media Art
Ahmed Ezzo, The Military-Entertainment Complex in Hollywood Cinema
4:30 PM Break
5:00 PM Film Screening: eXistenZ (1999)
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins