Departmental Excellence Award for Undergraduate Students

Awarded to recognize undergraduates who have produced exceptional work in the areas of production and scholarly writing

• Xanthe Brown
• Eugene Brye
• Jessie Chen
• Sarah Clayton
• Samuel Garcia-Bryce
• Julianna Feit
• Lily Micheline Kaplan
• Rachel Ramirez
• Lola Selby
• Ignacio Toro
• Jackson Weber
• Kelly Wilson
• Shenxun Yao

Bindley Film Production Award

Established by Bill (C84) and Scott (C88) Bindley to fund the annual production of student films

• Daniela Morales
• Lesi Xie

Chuck Kleinhans Essay Prize

The Chuck Kleinhans Essay Prize is named for film scholar, artist, activist, and radical iconoclast Chuck Kleinhans (1942-2017), Associate Professor Emeritus of the department of Radio-Televison-Film at Northwestern University, in which he served for nearly thirty years. Professor Kleinhans was an exceptional teacher and scholar who championed the intersectional, interdisciplinary, and independent in filmmaking as well as film studies. He wrote and researched voraciously about a plethora of subjects including melodrama, the films of the L.A. Rebellion, working class Hollywood heroes, and the aesthetics and politics of pornography. He also made his own experimental and documentary films and co-founded the influential film studies journal JUMP CUT with his life partner Julia Lesage in 1974. By taking JUMP CUT to a free online format in 2001, Chuck and Julia served as pioneers of the contemporary open-access scholarship movement.

The Kleinhans Essay Prize, awarded to an outstanding work of undergraduate film scholarship, was established to honor and perpetuate Chuck’s legendary and boundless enthusiasm for the work of emerging scholars. As his colleagues Catherine Grant, Michael Renov, Brian Winston, and Patricia Zimmerman attested soon after his death in December 2017, Chuck “reveled in the brilliant new ideas” of young scholars and was a “remarkable and hugely influential mentor to many important scholars” in film and media studies.

• Journey Cole
  Out of Sight, Out of Mind: How Illusions Uses Cinematic Illusions to Reveal Truth

Max Saines Grant

Max Saines (RTVF 2013) was a beloved member of the Northwestern community and a proud Studio 22 alum. Max passed away in June of 2019 and is remembered by many for his work at Northwestern, Endeavor Content, and beyond. He fostered a spirit of collaboration by bringing people together to make their creative dreams a reality, and we hope to do the same with this grant. In his honor, this grant will be offered yearly to a writer/director team with a shared vision for a unique narrative short film. This grant is made possible by Emily Gerson Saines (SOC 1986) and Andy Saines, Max’s parents.

• Jaila Carey
• Alivia Wynn

Joann Torretta Award

Established in honor of Joann Torretta, a member of the School of Communication class of 1953, to fund student productions

• Catherine Moore

WNUR Willis L. Butler Leadership Award

Presented to a student who has shown strong leadership in furthering WNUR; sponsored by the WNUR alumni organization

• Edwin Chalas Cuevas
• Catherine Moore