Carl Elsaesser, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Film, received a Creative Capital Award for his feature film that is still untitled. The film is a coming of age story using the video diaries of a family Carl met and sent cameras to in 2014. Blending their video diaries, ethnography, and fiction, the film follows Ellis, a queer boy documenting his family’s frustrations and emerging sense of self. Set against Maine’s colonial legacy, Carl’s project probes privilege and America’s cultural adolescence through the small revelations that shape personal liberation.

The Creative Capital Award provides artists with unrestricted funds for new work in any discipline. Carl’s award will compensate his all-star team in charge of producing, editing, sound design, and visual effects for the film. It will also fund a shooting trip to Germany to examine the history of video, a conceptual underpinning to the film. Carl also received a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship for this innovative project.