The Middle East conflicts between Palestine and Israel are long-term, ongoing and wide-ranging. Kicking All Odds is an observational documentary that explores women football players from Palestine – both Christian and Muslim girls – who play together and forge a team despite all the hardships they face.

As a Chinese filmmaker, I feel obligated to reveal a true story about Chinese international students. Through my subjects and my stories, I am planning to express the messages that both adapting to a new culture and paying the financial cost of a foreign education have never been simple, but we will never give up our dreams.

Inside Story explores the essence of story and attempts to connect the audience to the significance of story in their own lives. The documentary examines story and determines the elements necessary for its formation. The film investigates the psychological aspects of story, inspects the physiological processing of story that connects story to the way we think and perceive, and finally, emphasizes the functions and values of story.

This thesis provides an investigation of how gender stereotypes affect the narrative, mechanics, and experience of three different console based video games (Venetica, WET, and Velvet Assassin) with female protagonist. Each game is addressed within separate case study chapters and discusses how gender is integrated and intertwined with each narrative structure, image representation, and interactivity. Further analysis is provided in each case study as gender is addressed across several parts of each game, beginning with the female protagonist’s role as hero, her representation throughout the game (i.e. body image, attire, and weapons), and the game play experience. In conclusion, this thesis shows that the protagonist gender within a video game does affect the game in its entirety. More specifically, all three female heroines discussed in this thesis showcases stereotypes associated with the dominant sexual representation of female video game characters, as well as similar traditional feminine and masculine stereotypes associated with heroines in film and television. This provides for rather problematic representations of female heroes, alone with the games designed for them which are equally as stereotypical in their narrative, mechanics, and game play.

Into the Canyons is a documentary short that provides an intimate portrait of two volunteer Wilderness Rangers working and living in Zion National Park in Utah for a summer. Sarah dreams of being a Park Ranger for the National Park Service, but must wait till she earns US citizenship. Working in an office, Allen wants a change in lifestyle. Together they explore the Wilderness and learn what it means to be a Park Ranger.

This thesis film is an examination of my evolving perspectives and understanding of my Irish heritage as I travel to the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Through the course of a year and a half, I traveled to Belfast to explore the modern state of the sectarian conflicts between the Catholic and Protestant communities. Through the use of personal reflection, historical research, interviews with local residents, and on-location experiential learning, I began to learn not only about the modern state of Belfast and its economic and social climate, but also about the complexities of personal cultural identification and the concept of “truth” and “mutual guilt” when associated with acts of violence. With the use of the short documentary as the medium of choice, I am able to relay to audiences not only my own personal reflection of identity and history, but then allow them to reflect on their own perspectives as well, helping to create sincere moments of personal thought and reflections.