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The MA team: Media and Film MA students whose work features in the upcoming degree show Stories And Spaces

Work by tomorrow’s stars of the digital media industry will feature in the University of Sussex MA degree show for media and film – called Stories and Spaces – at Lighthouse in Brighton.

The show (5pm to 11pm on Tuesday 4 September) will feature work by 30 postgraduate students completing courses in Digital Documentary, Journalism and Documentary Practice, Creative Media Practice and Digital Media.

The films, installations and digital presentations cover a wide range of subjects, including the lives of Hare Krishna devotees in Brighton; the illegal bird trade in India; the journey of a transgender man via surgery to a new life as a woman; and tributes to the diverse worlds of Frisbee, burlesque and the iconic Eagle Jaguar E-type car.

The student line-up includes:

• Sam Franklyn’s film Community Spirit charts the friendships within two groups of Sussex-based ghost hunters – and the events of a night-time ghost hunt in the woods. Sam already has his own film company, Concrete Rose Productions.
• Former medical worker Peter Harte gave up his career to follow his passion for media. His multimedia, interactive installation, entitled Mnemosyne, enables visitors to two rooms to experience dementia as a physical condition (inside a simulated brain) and psychologically (as a newly diagnosed dementia patient in a care home), with a real nurse on hand to “induct” the visitor into the care home.
• Documentary maker Rachel Tavernor combines a love of activism and crafts to show the subversive and restorative sides of needlework, as experienced by a political activist and a former prisoner, in her film Stitched Stories.
• As a Norwegian child of Gambian parents, Olimata Jeng always had to explain to others ‘where she was from’. Her film The N(orwegian) Word provides the opportunity to explore her personal heritage.
• Canadian student Nathaniel Torok’s travels in America’s Deep South are the inspiration for an atmospheric portrait of a forgotten community in Alabama entitled Down in the Quarter.

The evening will include the presentation to students of awards, judged by filmmakers Daisy Asquith, Penny Woolcock and Marc Francis and the broadcaster and writer Simon Fanshawe (who is also Chair of Council, the University’s governing body). They will be awarding memberships to filmmakers’ network Shooting People and internships at production companies back2back and Touch Productions.

Filmmaker Lizzie Thynne, who convenes the MA in Digital Documentary, says: "The MA has gone from strength to strength, attracting a diverse and talented group of students from around the world.

“This year’s students have created stimulating and revealing films and have worked tremendously hard – not only to produce their individual films but to present them in this final show.”

The show is free and open to the public – just send an RSVP to storiesandspaces@gmail.com