Graduate film student Tracy Jane (right) and other UCF film students prepare to leave on May 10 for Bulgaria as part of the UCF International Documentary Lab. The program sponsors 10 students to travel to Bulgaria for a month to simulate real-world experience working in unfamiliar areas on tight deadlines for their documentaries.
Courtesy of Tracy Jane
A select group of UCF film students is traveling to Bulgaria for the International Documentary Lab next month.
The students will be overseas for one month, and will be paired with Bulgarian film students and given only a few weeks to produce a documentary to be screened before a live audience.
“It’s really about the collaboration with the Bulgarians and to tell stories that are uniquely Bulgarian,” said Tracy Jane, a graduate film student.
Jane is one of just 10 students selected from the UCF film program to travel to Bulgaria. She said that it can be nerve-wracking to travel and work abroad, but she is excited by this opportunity.
“So much of art and life and school is an act of faith, and you get that faith in yourself when you do things, big and small. And this is a pretty big thing,” Jane said.
The cohort of film students will be leaving for Bulgaria on May 10. Philip Peters, professor of film, has been organizing the UCF International Documentary Lab for years.
“It’s amazing to watch two Americans and two Bulgarians that have never met each other until the day we arrived,” Peters said. “I put them in teams and they’re off and running, and then they’re figuring out the topics and starting to shoot and edit.”
Peters said the primary objective of traveling so far is to replicate what students will face once they get jobs in the field.
“It puts the students in a real-world situation where they have an assignment, they’re living on location as if they were on a CNN crew being sent to do a documentary about Bulgaria,” Peters said.
UCF’s film department is one of the most intensive and innovative in academia, Jane and Peters said.
“This is one of the most innovative programs in the country where students are put in a real world situation, taken overseas and put under the pressure of time and resources to make documentaries,” Peters said.
The students will not know their partners or their topic until they arrive, Peters said.
Peters said he fully finances the trip and appreciates that UCF not only allows students to travel but is also so supportive of the program.
Jane said that she is looking forward to this “amazing” opportunity.
“I don’t know how it’s going to work out, but by the end of the month, we will have made a whole documentary and had fun and met some cool new friends across the globe,” Jane said.