Student winners of the FRAME FORWARD film festival: (from left) Emily Adon, Kayla Battle, Kiara Battle and Alicia León with Orlenny De León.
Three students from The City College of New York are winners of the inaugural FRAME FORWARD Student Video Festival from the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education. The festival is open to all CUNY students, regardless of their major, with this year’s theme: “Featuring Student Life Through the Eyes of Those Living It.”
The festival was founded by Juan Carlos Mercado, dean of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies, and Lorena De Miranda Marques, academic advisor, marketing and communications, recruitment coordinator at CWE. All winners received a trophy and $200 gift card in the winner of all, best CCNY video, or best CUNY video categories. Videos were screened at The Americas Film Festival New York.
Following are this year’s CCNY winners:
· Emily Adon, an electrical engineering student at CCNY’s Grove School of Engineering, was the winner of all—the highest-rated film across all submissions, regardless of category—for “Through My Eyes,” a short series of clips displaying student life. This is Adon’s first film, and she created everything including the music as well as incorporated parts of student life that caught her eye during freshman year.
· Kiara Battle and Kayla Battle students in the BFA in Film and Video Production Program in CCNY’s Division of Humanities and the Arts, won in the best CCNY video category for “Eye of the Fish,” a poetic, short documentary combining curated images and interpersonal archival footage exploring the perspective of students through the eyes of a small orange fish. The twin siblings are a New York City filmmaking duo that graduated from the Ghetto Film School in 2023.
Bronx Community College student Alicia León won in the best CUNY video category for “In My Head,” which focuses on college students and their struggles with anxiety due to mounting academic pressure.
Winners received gift cards thanks to the generosity of festival supporters: Café One, Fumo, White Horse Tavern, FilmFreeway, and B&H.
Submissions for the 2026 FRAME FORWARD Student Video Festival open Jan. 11, 2026 with the theme "We Are More Alike Than Unlike," inspired by the Maya Angelou poem "We Are Family."
For more information about the festival, eligibility requirements and how to submit a video, please visit https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/frameforward.
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization Degree Choices ranks CCNY #1 nationally among universities for economic return on investment. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Lightcast puts at $3.2 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers, and society. At City College, more than 16,500 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity, and scholarship. In 2023, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together,” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College's mission. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic, and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.
Thea Klapwald
e:
tklapwald@ccny.cuny.edu