Documentary 'Quiet Sundays' named best student film at festival

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A Penn State student documentary that explores the passion that sports creates among fans has earned another honor, just days before it makes its Pennsylvania premiere at the Pittsburgh Shorts Film Festival.

“Quiet Sundays” received the Dr. George Sanger Best Student Film Award, which comes with a $5,000 prize, at the Coronado Island Film Festival near San Diego on Nov. 12. The film, which is about NFL fans in Great Britain, came from a 10-day, on-location working trip by students in the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism, who covered two NFL games at Wembley Stadium in 2017.

The award comes ahead of the film’s first general public screening in Pennsylvania, at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater. Tickets are available through the Pittsburgh Shorts website and there will be an alumni event as well.

“It’s been humbling to see the shorts against which our undergraduate students competed — wonderful work by grad students from some of the top film schools in the country,” said “Quiet Sundays” faculty director Boaz Dvir, an assistant professor of journalism who represented the Curley Center at the Coronado Island Film Festival.

“I enjoyed representing ‘Quiet Sundays’ at this top-notch film festival, especially talking with festival-goers about how our students made the film,” said Dvir, who is an award-winning documentarian. “Accepting the award on behalf of our whole team gave me the opportunity to name each member, from the director, Katie Kemmerer, to my colleague and faculty producer, John Affleck.”

Affleck, the Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society and director of the Curley Center, said the award was gratifying.

“We’re very grateful to the organizers of the Coronado Island Film Festival. The honors for ‘Quiet Sundays’ have been an incredible reward for all the work the students put into the project,” said Affleck. “And now, to have the film showing in Pittsburgh this week, just makes it all that much better. We hope alumni and friends will come out to see our film and others scheduled in that block on Thursday.”

Other accolades for “Quiet Sundays” have included: “Best Editing in a Documentary” at the Southampton International Film Festival in England last month; “Best Student Film” in a monthly competition sponsored by the Online Film Festival earlier this year; and a nomination for a Mid-Atlantic Emmy as a university student production.

About the Curley Center

The Curley Center, created in 2003 and housed in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, explores issues and trends in sports journalism through instruction, outreach, programming and research. The Curley Center complements its core courses with an emphasis on internships and hand-on experience, covering major sporting events for professional media organizations. In addition to on-field coverage, the center emphasizes the lessons that sports can teach about culture.