January 17, 2003
Contact: Phil Benoit
802-443-5198
pbenoit@middlebury.edu
Posted: January 17, 2003
MIDDLEBURY,
VT - Ted Perry, Fletcher Professor of the Arts at Middlebury College,
served as one of 13 members of the motion pictures jury for the third
annual American Film Institute (AFI) awards program. The AFI selects the
years most outstanding achievements in film and television as well
as significant moments in the world of moving image for recognition.
The jurors,
whose names are kept confidential until their selections have been made,
convened at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Los Angeles in December of 2002 for
two days of deliberation. The winning films and television projects were
honored at a luncheon at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles on Jan.
16.
Perry said the
selection committee included people with a variety of film backgrounds.
It was stimulating and exciting to sit in a room for a day with
people-a Newsweek critic, producers, directors, writers, etc.-who are
all passionate about movies, and arguing fervently among ourselves about
the virtues and defects of various films, said Perry.
According to
the AFI, its awards program is the only form of national recognition that
honors the film and television creative ensemble as a whole, including
those in front of and behind the camera. The 10 films selected for 2002
AFI honors are About a Boy, About Schmidt, Adaptation,
Antwone Fisher, Chicago, Frida, Gangs
of New York, The Hours, The Lord of The Rings:
The Two Towers, and The Quiet American.
Perry teaches
courses in film and video at Middlebury College. He is the former director
of the department of film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City,
and he has taught film and video courses at the University of Iowa, State
University of New York at Purchase, and the American Film Institutes
Center for Advanced Film and Television Study. He also taught at the University
of Texas at Austin, where he was director of graduate studies, and at
New York University, where he was chairman of the department of cinema
studies. A trustee emeritus of the American Film Institute, Perry has
also served as the visiting Henry Luce Professor of Film Studies at Harvard
University.
His writing
on film has resulted in several dozen articles and a number of books.
A frequent lecturer, he has spoken in the United States and abroad on
various aspects of film, and has also written and directed plays for the
stage and documentaries for television.