Mountaintop Mentor - Elizabeth Fifer

We asked Professor Fifer to give us some insight on the student project happening at Mountaintop this summer under her mentorship and she shared, in her own words, her thoughts on their progress to date and the hopeful outcome of their efforts.

The Mountaintop Project gives students a chance to work independently as a group with faculty guidance, but not direction, so the students can be as creative and wide-ranging as they want.

I applied for a grant for 4 interns to edit 9 short films my English 11 students made last semester about Wislawa Szymborska. They are making a longer film from the various parts, adding their own films and an interview with Joanna Trzeciak, who translated the collection Miracle Fair on which all the films are based.

The greatest challenge for them is technical–will they be able to create a coherent film from many disparate parts? I think with their high level of skill they will be able to meet this challenge.

I hope that they finish the project with a 20 minute film that serves as a celebration of Nobel Prize winner Wislawa Szymborska and an introduction to her beautiful poetry.