Can you believe it’s already been four months since Grad/Aperture launched? Four months of building and shaping this site for graduate students at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, and for those outside the program to get insight into our projects. There is still much more to come, but we’d like to take a moment to look back at some highlights from this semester:

• Several of our MAs successfully submitted their theses, a few MAs and PhDs had journal publications come out recently, and many went to conferences throughout the United States, including San Francisco and Pittsburgh.
• Invited lectures and work-in-progress talks abounded this term, from Prof. John Caldwell of UCLA to Prof. Karen Beckman of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as Concordia post-doctoral fellows Marta Boni and Jeff Scheible, and MHSoC’s own Dr. Martin Lefebvre.
• Grad lounge librarian Malory Beazley started an online catalog of the grad library, MAs David Hanley and Teresa Lobos covered the Fantasia Film Festival for Offscreen, MA Georgia Cowan worked at POP Montreal, and MA Ryan Barnett began reconstruction of a 50-year old raft as part of an independent study.
• In addition to the film festivals Montreal has to offer, our student groups were active in programming all sorts of screenings, including the CGFSSA’s fun movie nights and Cinema Politica’s always thought-provoking events.
• Our resources page has grown significantly, thanks in large part to the generous submissions of our students, and now includes resources on grant writing, teaching, professionalization skills, applying for Quebec permanent residency, and conference applications, along with the materials of the semester’s various workshops.

And this is just the beginning. We’d also like to hear what you thought of these, so we welcome your feedback on the year so far – what you’ve liked, what you haven’t, and what you would like to see. Sound off on the comments or send us an email at gradaperture@gmail.com

Next semester will prove to be even busier, with Concordia hosting the FSAC Annual Graduate Colloquium in March, the second annual MA Film Studies Symposium, a MHSoC delegation at SCMS, more invited lectures and special student-organized events. We’re all looking forward to these, and we hope you are too!

— The Grad/Aperture Website Team