Toronto TIFF Bell Lightbox Explores University’s Portrayal in Movies
What film best captured your college or university years? Were you a quiet gifted prodigy like Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network? Were you a party-hopping lady’s man like Van Wilder? Or loveably lame like the guys in Revenge of The Nerds, or a jock like Rudy? Maybe you cleaned the floors like in Good Will Hunting.
There are lot of films that describe the student experience, but a recent conference at Toronto’s film shrine, The TIFF Bell Lightbox, recently explored how universities, professors and research are portrayed in film.
The first annual International Worldviews Conference on Higher Education and Media explored the symbiosis of film and higher education, as well as the effect of quickly changing digital technologies on the industry.
The event brought together experts and filmmakers such as Mark Langer, a Professor of Film Studies at Carleton University who jokes that, “I wish I were a professor in movies rather than a professor of movies.”
The conference also featured John Mighton, Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Field Institute in Mathematical Sciences. Mighton acted as the mathematical consultant on Good Will Hunting and also won a Governor General’s Award for his own play Possible Worlds.
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