Cinema student wins federal fellowship

Posted Thu, 10/22/2009 - 10:16am by Matt Itelson

Student Crescent Diamond has won a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education. The $30,000 award helps fund her graduate studies at SF State.

Diamond is a filmmaker, media activist, teacher and event producer, providing often-overlooked points of view on culture and social justice issues. The Master of Fine Arts candidate in Cinema also serves on the Berkeley Community Media board of directors, as vice chair. She recently produced “The Heretics,” a feature-length documentary about the women’s art movement of the 1970s, based on stories from original members of the Heresies Collective. The film won a MediaMaker award from the Bay Area Video Coalition and premiered earlier this month at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Diamond is one of 72 Javits fellowship winners this year. Selected from 764 applicants, fellows are chosen for superior academic achievement, exceptional promise and financial need.

This year’s award winners represent 28 colleges and universities nationwide. SF State is the only CSU campus.

Diamond is the seventh SF State student to win the Javits Fellowship in recent years, joining Bethynia Cárdenas, Liz Rossof, Janet Martinez, Victoria Gamburg, Cade Bursell and Erin Ploss-Campoamor.