Adam Harrison is the Customized Programs Manager at the IES Abroad London Center and a talented music composter for film and TV.
Cathleen Owens • Film Festival Jury
Cathleen Owens is an artist and educator predominantly working with text, video, and performance on the internet. Her work often makes use of self-portraiture and performance to blur the line between the personal and the unfamiliar. Through various media, Owens' practice explores how much "personal" is required to achieve universality and how little personal is required to cross over towards confrontational. She holds a master's degree from the ArtScience Interfaculty of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague and the Royal Conservatoire, The Hague, NL, and a BFA in Photography and the Digital Image from the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, USA. In 2015, she founded the artist initiative facetime den haag with artists Wessel Baarda, Afra Eisma, and Marnix van Uum.
Cathleen is also a faculty member at IES Abroad Amsterdam, where she teaches the course "Experimental Media and the Internet in Contemporary Art." In this course, she guides students through an exploration of the evolving role of digital media in contemporary art practices, emphasizing experimentation and critical engagement with online platforms. Through hands-on projects and discussions, students investigate the intersection of technology, culture, and artistic expression, gaining insight into new approaches to art-making in the digital age.
Geoffrey Colman • Film Festival Jury
Join the Film Festival
Geoffrey Colman is an IES Abroad London Film Faculty member and professional Acting Coach who has worked extensively in Film, TV, Theatre.
Recent film coaching credits include: John Wick 4 (Lionsgate); Kick Ass 2 (Universal Pictures); Minamata (Metal Work Pictures/ MGM); Bruiser (Disney Onyx Collective); The Vampire Academy (Universal Television); Tin Soldier (Unified Pictures); Heartstopper (Netflix); Invasion (Apple TV); Chelsea Cowboy (GCB Films). Vigil (BBC). Recent West End coaching credits include: Strictly Ballroom the Musical (New Wimbledon Theatre / UK Tour); Dirty Dancing (2018 /2023 Dominion Theatre); Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new musical Cinderella (Gillian Lynne Theatre); Singing in the Rain (Sadlers Wells Theatre); An American in Paris (Dominion Theatre); War of The Worlds (Dominion Theatre); Cabaret (New Wimbledon Theatre/ UK tour); Carousel (English National Opera); Crazy For You (UK Tour); Chicago (Phoenix Theatre); 9 to 5 (Savoy Theatre).
Maite Aparicio • Film Festival Jury
Maite has worked as a professor and as an art editor on short film production projects. While she was doing her major in Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid, she collaborated with the Theater School Cuarta Pared and studied Performing Arts with them contributing to the direction, script, and interpretation of works such as 'Post Mortem' or 'Dime quién eres'. During this time, she also completed a postgraduate program with the Central of Cinema in Madrid and collaborated on several short films with them.
Alongside her art studies, she completed a Master's Degree in Linguistics and Education at Antonio de Nebrija University. She has international work experience in countries such as China, Korea, or Ireland, having worked at universities like Nanjing University (China). Currently residing in Granada, since 2022, she has been working with IES Abroad as a professor of History of Spanish Cinema and Spanish Language.
Forming an Offline Club, and other such updates
Recently Instagram recommended I attend a weekend getaway in the Netherlands with a relatively new initiative called the “Offline Club.” The accompanying reel showed a group of content, happy looking people lounging on blankets with books in the grass; people smiling at one another while peeling oranges in a naturally-lit kitchen; a trio out on a walk in the fields, gazing ponderously at the sky and the highland cows, and, if that wasn’t already enough: people gathered around a long natural-wood table laden with fresh, local (very healthy: probably vegan) dishes.
My Final Month in the South of France
With only a week left in Nice, I am feeling full of gratitude and nostalgia.
My appreciation for the South of France has grown exponentially in the month of April. The sun is shining each and every day. The streets are lively. Everything is a bit more crowded, and I love it. It has been amazing to see the transition from emptiness and short days to tourists aplenty and 8pm sunsets.
Fun Ways to Increase Your Language Exposure Abroad
I’ve known for the past several years that I wanted to study in Spain.
For even longer, I have known that I wanted to study abroad in a Spanish-dominant country. The primary goal of my semester overseas was always to increase, as much as humanly possible, my Spanish exposure and abilities.
A Solo Day in London
This past Friday I found myself with something unusual: a whole day of free time. Now, I am an introvert, so spending time by myself is not something that I ever try to avoid, but usually I like to spend my “me-time” wrapped up in blankets, watching TV in my bed. However, this week was different. I’m leaving London in about a week and I didn’t want to waste a day inside. Not to mention it was absolutely beautiful outside. So, I decided to fill my day with as much solo activities as I could (while also spending as little money as possible).