Quick Facts
• Learn about the business of film by working with local film festivals
• Work as an intern with employers such as MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures and many others
• Study at one of the few women’s colleges in the U.S. to offer a hands-on production
  degree in filmmaking

Faculty

Chair, Department of Digital Film and Media
Kerri Yost is a filmmaker inspired by Midwest themes and interested in social issues and film. Yost learned filmmaking overseas in London and co-founded a production company in Poland, producing and directing short films, educational videos and video art. She received a Heartland Feature Award for "Neither Here Nor There."

After returning home to Missouri, Yost focused on documentaries about her own community. Her films have won awards at international film festivals and have been broadcast on stations, including PBS, Free Speech T.V., and Discovery Channel, and televised around the world. Yost is also passionate about creating more opportunities for women in the film industry and is the founder and executive director of the Citizen Jane Film Festival. Yost received her B.A. in English from the University of Missouri and her M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language from Central Missouri State University.

Chad Freidrichs has been working in the film and television industry for nearly a decade. He previously worked as the senior creative services producer at KMIZ-TV in Columbia, where he was an Addy Award-winning television commercial producer.

Freidrichs has produced two feature-length documentary films. His first, “Jandek on Corwood,” was self-distributed to festivals and commercial venues in more than 70 cities worldwide and received national critical attention. In 2004, “Jandek on Corwood” was awarded Best Documentary by the Raindance Film Festival in London and was broadcast nationally in Canada on Independent Film Channel. “First Impersonator,” completed in 2007, received the Best Feature-Length Film prize at the 2008 Kansas City Jubilee Film Festival. Freidrichs is producing a documentary feature about Pruitt-Igoe, the ill-fated St. Louis public-housing complex. In addition to film and academic pursuits, Freidrichs works as a freelance video producer and graphic designer.

Chase Thompson has been involved in the Columbia film scene since 2004, when he graduated with a B.S. in Art (Photography) from Columbia College. Thompson is a fourth-generation teacher with a passion for helping students find their creative voice through film.

Aside from teaching at Stephens, Thompson is president of Columbia Access Television, where he helps local residents produce their own television programs. Thompson, who is also a musician and an independent filmmaker, is producing three feature-length documentaries on soul legend Roy C. Hammond, Sir Lattimore Brown, and the blacklisted author John Zielinski.