2025 APRIL Summer Colloquium

“The Varieties of Cinematic Experience”

19-28 June, New York City

Film Festival-Symposium (20-22 June; open to the public)
Followed by a 5-day colloquium (23-27 June; for a select cadre)
All activities at Judson Memorial Church, NYC

Why do we seek cinematic experiences? And how do these experiences move beyond the screen and become embodied in communal and spiritual ways? From 20-22 June, the VCE film festival-symposium will bring together religious leaders, educators, filmmakers, writers, artists, and enthusiasts. Collectively the group will creatively and critically examine how we receive cinematic works in community and how our environment affects the viewing experience.

We will, of course, be watching a series of excellent films, but we will also be experimenting with the ways that we witness and absorb the films, encouraged through specific interactive engagements and prompts with each film. We aim to appreciate the innate artistry of filmmaking and we also seek to uplift the organic co-creative potential of the audience, excavating ways these experiences can be spiritual, community-forming, and/or generative for further action beyond the time-bound moment of watching.

While the “VCE festival-symposium” will last from Friday to Sunday, the cadre of colloquium fellows (limited to ten fellows) will continue the film fest-symposium themes and meet in a more intimate environment for the following 5 days. There, colloquium fellows will share their own projects (past and future) and gain insights from being together with others from film production, academic, religious, and artistic backgrounds.


Applications are due by 11:59 pm EST (New York time) on
March 7, 2024.

For those selected for the colloquium, APRIL will pay for transportation, food, and lodging, from 20-27 June in NYC. The application requires your contact information, information about your affiliation, interests in the program, a CV or resume, and information about who will write your reference letter. You must be logged into a Google account in order to complete the application. If you’re logged in you should see your account name below, and a cloud symbol with a check mark.  If you do not have a Google account, click https://accounts.google.com/signup to create one.

Google will automatically save your application for 30 days, so you don’t need to complete the form in one sitting. You will only be able to submit one application. DO NOT CLICK SUBMIT UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO DO SO. You will not be able to edit after you click submit, or after the March 7 application deadline.

Please contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions about the application, or problems using this online form. We don’t want technical difficulties to stand in the way of your application!

Thank you for your interest in the APRIL colloquium.