Student documentary about Cambridge backed by the Master’s Fund
Monday 19 December 2022
A new student-led documentary about the city of Cambridge and the surrounding area is in the works and on track to be screened in 2023 after receiving financial support from the Master’s Fund, which was created with a generous donation of £100,000 from Jon (1983, Natural Sciences) and Ann Ardron.
The film is being produced by a team drawn from across the University of Cambridge, including four representatives from St Catharine’s: recent graduate Cian Jones (2019, History) along with students Theo Jessen (a third-year HSPS undergraduate), Miruna Tiberiu (a third-year Modern and Medieval Languages undergraduate) and Olivia Townsend (a second-year History undergraduate).
Miruna has taken on assistant director duties and decided to apply for funding from the College on behalf of the team. She explains what the project is hoping to achieve:
“This isn’t going to be a classic documentary! Rather than educating the viewer, we’re aiming for an interview-based ethnographic study of the myths and legends surrounding Cambridge, which will give residents a chance to tell these stories in their own words. We are mindful that Cambridge is often used in the media synonymously for the University, to conjure up images of a homogenous, privileged, non-diverse mass of students. Not only is the student body now more diverse than this implies, but the city itself has a rich past and present that has never been defined entirely by the University. We have taken care to dispel these prejudices by choosing to interview a group of individuals from all walks of life, most of whom aren’t students, and by delving into the natural history and socio-political history of the city.”
Behind the scenes of the documentary (credit: Rowan Hall Maudslay)
The Master’s Fund offered to cover costs of up to £1,300 during filming and post-production: from travel and catering for interview subjects, to expenses associated with screening the final edit and submitting it to film festivals.
“We’re aiming to have wrapped (finished shooting) by the end of 2022 and I’m pleased to say we’re on schedule to achieve this. We’ve recorded plenty of interviews and other footage of life in modern Cambridge, and have already started the editing process. The much-needed financial injection from the Master’s Fund will be especially important next year when we come to distribute the documentary – taking it on tour to small venues across Cambridge and Cambridgeshire – and then entering it into film festivals to attract a wider audience.”
Miruna Tiberiu
Most of the students involved in the documentary have been juggling the project alongside their studies, often pausing work during term time. Miruna has been fortunate to be able to dovetail her interest in cinema with her degree:
“I am planning to pursue a career in documentary filmmaking and am incorporating this into my degree: my dissertation this year will focus on cinema, and I will be taking a paper on documentary cinema in my fourth year. I’ve also started to teach myself how to edit and I have a second documentary in the works exploring the extent to which communism affected how Romanians view objects and crafts.”
