LMU School of Film and Television (SFTV) was ranked 8th by TheWrap in its annual listing of the top 50 film schools in the country. This ranking comes on the heels of SFTV’s highest-ranking to date, 7th in the nation, from The Hollywood Reporter.
SFTV, which will be celebrating its 20th Anniversary in fall 2021, has been steadily expanding under the leadership of Dean Peggy Rajski. In the current semester alone, SFTV announced renowned film producer Janet Yang as the school’s first Presidential Fellow, as well as hired on seven other new faculty members, including Peabody-award winner John Strauss, Border Patrol‘s Ernie Bustamante, and seasoned film executive and producer Rosanne Korenberg.
Alumni of both the undergraduate and graduate programs have also been making headlines. Evan Romansky’s MFA ’16, Ratched, which he co-created and wrote, is Netflix’s top new series of 2020. Solomon Onita Jr.’s MFA ’16 debut feature-length film, Tazmanian Devil, won the inaugural John Singleton Director Award for Best First Feature at the 2020 American Black Film Festival (ABFF). Director of Photography Shana Hagan ’89 is now a member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), on top of her most recent Oscar nomination. Jiaxuan “Jacky” Song’s ’19 thesis film Incognito was a finalist for a 2020 Student Academy Award (SAA). And the list of good news goes on.
As part of the 20th Anniversary of LMU SFTV in fall 2021, the school will open the four-story Howard B. Fitzpatrick Pavilion on LMU’s Westchester campus. It will add 24,000 square feet of brand-new teaching, learning, and collaboration spaces for SFTV. This sparkling new facility will serve students and faculty by supporting flexible teaching and learning methods that are adapted constantly to the ever-changing nature of media and entertainment.
Photo: Su Po Wei
