Help Two Film Students Make Their Senior Films

Hello! We are Imogen Pranger and Despina Rizopoulos, two film students seeking help with funding our final thesis films at Oberlin College!

Imogen Pranger is directing, animating, and editing an experimental animated documentary about the Oberlin College Mail Art Collection. Mail art is an underground art movement in which artists send each other art through the postal service-- rejecting the way in which art is sold and distributed in museums and galleries. Oberlin's Clarence Ward Art Library is home to two archives of mail art, comprising over 20,000 envelopes, postcards, letters, artiststamps, and much more. This film will lead viewers through the history and future of this archive and mail art as a whole, pulling from techniques of multimedia collage, experimental animation, and the manipulation of 16 millimeter film.

Despina Rizopoulos is directing and starring in an experimental piece taking place on the Vermilion River in Ohio. Through combining dance and experimental filmmaking practices, she aims to capture an attempt at navigating a liminal space and grounding oneself in that environment. This film, titled "Vermilion," will be shot on 16 millimeter black and white film which will be painted and scratched on by Rizopoulos.

Rizopoulos and Pranger also plan on using these projects as an opportunity to teach fellow Oberlin students helping on their sets learn how to use these film cameras and shoot on film.

Pranger and Rizopoulos need help funding the handling and transportation of the film to get it scanned in New York City, props and other equipment needed for their projects, accommodations for their film crews, and traveling expenses back and forth from Oberlin to their filming locations.

Thank you so much for taking your time to read through this, we are very excited to get these projects started and be able to complete our final films at Oberlin College!