Kate Walker, who graduated as Kate Lykins in 2012 and was recently married, screened her short documentary ‘Just Bree’ to Citizen Jane this year. This was her first time having work shown at a festival. ‘Just Bree’ introduces Bree Sutherland, a trans-woman living in Missoula, Montana, and shares her story about learning the difference between ‘body’ and ‘gender’. The documentary shows home videos of Bree as a child, creating a heartbreaking effect as she explains the difficult and confusing journey to finally being comfortable with the person she’s meant to be.

“‘Just Bree’ was my first film to be entered into a film festival, I plan on submitting it to a few others,” Walker said. This wasn’t technically her first film because she participated in shoots through Stephens digital film department and her crew experience off campus.

Walker is currently producing her husband’s film ‘The Bootlegger’

Jacqui Joyce spent the spring semester of 2012 at FAMU International Film and Television Academy in Prague, Czech Republic. Most of the program focused on teaching her to work with 16 millimeter film, which is rare in the US and different from the digital format used at Stephens. In Prague Joyce shot ‘Nocturnal Ninja’, the film she showed this year at Citizen Jane.

Students at FAMU studied for three months before being given a fourth month to produce their films on their own. Joyce and fellow American student Gracie Gardner co-wrote ‘Nocturnal Ninja’ and had to fundraise online to kickstart their project.

According to the film’s original synopsis, “‘Nocturnal Ninja’ is the story of an overworked schoolteacher who is fed up with her deadbeat husband, once a promising young judo champion.”

Joyce’s role in the film was largely technical- she was the director of photography and the cinematographer. She said the most difficult part of the project was the language barrier between herself and the actors. The new language and culture surrounding her was difficult but dazzling and exciting at the same time. “There was so much to absorb that you’re trying to encapsulate in your film in subtle ways.”

This is not her first time being showcased at Citizen Jane. Last year Joyce created a short documentary ‘BoComo: At Your Service’ in which she interviewed Columbia waiters and waitresses. Joyce is currently working on her senior film “The Wonder Tower”, about the closing of an American roadside attraction.