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Iowa helped pioneer film studies—and today, you can hone your craft and find your voice in America’s best small city for the arts.

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Experience the energy of Iowa City, where filmmakers, dreamers, and storytellers turn vision into art.

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Iowa’s cinematic arts programs prepare you to think critically, create boldly, and lead in a changing media world.

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faculty helping student with VR

15

Full-time faculty
student in camera check out

229

Undergraduate cinema majors

Fall 2025 data

179

Undergraduate screenwriting majors

Fall 2025 data

screenwriting student in class workshopping

70 +

Courses taught
student in theatre discussing films

News and announcements

Cinematic Arts faculty projects are changing the way we see and hear the world through the Arts and Humanities Initiative

Friday, February 20, 2026
Faculty members Constantine Bakopoulos, Laura Conway, Laura Gede, Kate Hinshaw, and Kaia Olsen will advance their creative works through funding from the Arts and Humanities Initiative (AHI).

Dewey Stuit Fund Student Award

Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Congratulations to screenwriting student Danny Willis for being awarded from the Dewey Stuit Fund for Undergraduate Research to support her ongoing work on a script called NORTHSIDE!

New publication in ARTFORUM from Professor Michael Cowan

Thursday, February 5, 2026
Professor Michael Cowan has a new publication in ARTFORUM outlining the rich history of avant-garde filmmakers working in advertising, from the 1920s to more recent advertising work by the likes of Jean-Luc Godard and David Lynch. The article accompanies a major retrospective of avant-garde advertisements currently playing at Anthology Film Archives in New York.
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Events

Film Screening at FilmScene promotional image

Film Screening at FilmScene

Monday, March 23, 2026 7:00pm to 9:00pm
FilmScene

The Stanley presents a free double feature screening in collaboration with FilmScene. Head over to the ped mall to watch back-to-back screenings of A Dessert for Constance and Towards Tenderness, both films touch on the subject of masculinity and the lives of African immigrants in France.

This free programming is related the exhibition, Flex: Masculinities in the Arts of Global Africa, on view at the Stanley from February 28, 2026 - July 26, 2026.

A DESSERT FOR CONSTANCE
(1981, France, 63 min)...

"Rural Community-Centered Research: Maternity Care and Why It Matters" — Keynote lecture (in person and virtual) by Katy Kozhimannil, University of Minnesota promotional image

"Rural Community-Centered Research: Maternity Care and Why It Matters" — Keynote lecture (in person and virtual) by Katy Kozhimannil, University of Minnesota

Tuesday, March 24, 2026 7:30am
Virtual

Special Preliminary Event for the Obermann Symposium "Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research."

This lecture, co-sponsored by the UI Carver College of Medicine, is designed for a non-clinical audience and will be open to the public. Katy B. Kozhimannil is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Co-Director of the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center and the University of Minnesota Rural Health Program.

The lecture will take place in Pediatric...

One Day for Iowa | The University of Iowa's Annual Giving Day promotional image

One Day for Iowa | The University of Iowa's Annual Giving Day

Wednesday, March 25, 2026 (all day)
Virtual

One Day for Iowa returns on Wednesday, March 25, marking 10 years of Hawkeyes coming together to support what matters most at the University of Iowa.

Our 24-hour online giving day is a chance for alumni, students, faculty, staff, and friends to make an impact—supporting scholarships, research, health care, the arts, student experiences, and more. With special matching and unlocking opportunities throughout the day, every gift has the power to go further.

Celebrate a decade of generosity. Be part...

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium promotional image

Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research — 2025–26 Obermann Symposium

Thursday, March 26 to Friday, March 27, 2026 (all day)
Iowa City Public Library

Directed by Brian R. Farrell, Daria Fisher Page, and Ryan T. Sakoda (UI College of Law), Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research will bring together scholars, community leaders from across the U.S., and professionals who work with rural populations and in rural spaces. During the symposium, attendees will be invited to collaborate in theorizing rurality, share how it impacts their work, examine how rurality is represented and celebrated, and begin to discuss challenges...

"Reimagining the Rural from Idyll to Hinterland: Exhausting Rural Childhoods” — keynote lecture by Esther Pereen, University of Amsterdam promotional image

"Reimagining the Rural from Idyll to Hinterland: Exhausting Rural Childhoods” — keynote lecture by Esther Pereen, University of Amsterdam

Thursday, March 26, 2026 6:00pm to 7:00pm
Stanley Museum of Art

This is a keynote lecture for the 2025-2026 Obermann Symposium: "Cultivating Rurality: Building Community around Rural Research."

Esther Pereen, University of Amsterdam: "Reimagining the Rural from Idyll to Hinterland: Exhausting Rural Childhoods”

Across the social and cultural realms, the rural is often imagined through idyllic and pastoral genres that allow it to be conceived as a refuge from globalization. Pereen's European Research Council–funded project RURAL IMAGINATIONS, concentrating on...

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