About The FSC
The Film Study Center is Harvard's one center devoted to supporting artistic practice and creative work. It was founded in 1957 for the purpose of supporting work that records and interprets the world in images and sounds.
As such it sustains endeavors, from the ethnographic to the experimental, that explore and expand the expressive potential of audiovisual media, especially through nonfiction. To this end, it provides annual fellowships to students and faculty drawn from departments across the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the University as a whole, as well as to a small number of outstanding visiting filmmakers who are invited to Harvard to share their work with the University community.
Award-winning and in many cases classic works that have been produced over the years with the Film Study Center's assistance include John Marshall's The Hunters (1957), Robert Gardner's Dead Birds (1963) and Forest of Bliss (1985), Jan Lenica's Landscape (1974), Robb Moss' The Same River Twice (2003), Ross McElwee's Six O'Clock News (1997) and Bright Leaves (2003), Richard P. Rogers' DoHistory.org (2000), Peter Galison and Robb Moss’ Secrecy (2008), Gina Kim’s Never Forever (2007), Sharon Lockheart’s Lunch Break (2008) and Exit (2008), and Amie Siegel’s DDR/DDR (2008).
Established initially as a visual arm of Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, in 1964 the Film Study Center relocated to the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. In 1995, it moved to Sever Hall in Harvard Yard, where it remains an independent center serving the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as a whole while it continues its affiliation with the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies.
Work at the Film Study Center has been made possible both by its own endowment, the generosity of its benefactors, and grants that have been obtained for its projects from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacArthur Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rock Foundation, the Fidelity Charitable Foundation, the Norman Foundation, and the Billy Rose Foundation, among others.
Robert Gardner was Founding Director of the Film Study Center, and served as its Director from 1957 to 1997. Richard P. Rogers served as Director from 1998 to 2001. Lucien Castaing-Taylor has served as Associate Director from 2002 to 2008, and as Director since 2008. Ross McElwee served as interim Director in 2009-10. Currently, its Director is Lucien Castaing-Taylor, and its Assistant Director is Ernst Karel.
The Film Study Center
Harvard University
24 Quincy St.
Cambridge MA 02138
General Inquiries
fsc [at] fas.harvard.edu
Staff
Director
Lucien Castaing-Taylor
lgtaylor [at] fas.harvard.edu
617 495 9706
Assistant Director
Ernst Karel
617 496 2714
ekarel [at] fas.harvard.edu
Office Manager
Heidi H. Carrell
617 495 9704
hcarrell [at] fas.harvard.edu
Advisory Committee
D. N. Rodowick
Professor and Chair, Department of Visual and Environmental Studies,
Interim Director, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts,
Director of Graduate Studies for Film and Visual Studies; ex officio
Justin McCabe Weir
Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures; Faculty Associate, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies (2008-11)