College is a Movie

This short documentary follows the lives of about twenty first-year undergraduate residents at Victoria College at the University of Toronto. While firstly depicting the college experience, the film also reveals how empathy acts to foster community, especially post-COVID isolation. It delves into the universal human search and desire for acceptance.

  • Grace Eaton
    Director
  • Grace Eaton
    Writer
  • Grace Eaton
    Producer
  • Grace Eaton
    Editor
  • Alex Miteza
    Key Cast
  • Alexandra Luz
    Key Cast
  • Andrea Schapira
    Key Cast
  • Anna Killham
    Key Cast
  • Ariana Moyano
    Key Cast
  • Asima Kidwai
    Key Cast
  • Colette Choy
    Key Cast
  • Esther Chung
    Key Cast
  • Ginevra Sweetko
    Key Cast
  • Kurtis Law
    Key Cast
  • Manya Mittal
    Key Cast
  • Maren Helyar
    Key Cast
  • Megan Price
    Key Cast
  • Olivia Belovich
    Key Cast
  • Reid James
    Key Cast
  • Rintaro Masuda
    Key Cast
  • Rohan Mistry
    Key Cast
  • Sima Shmuylovich
    Key Cast
  • Timothy Brett
    Key Cast
  • Tom Wu
    Key Cast
  • Veronica Merisca
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short, Student
  • Runtime:
    22 minutes 19 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    December 2, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    552 USD
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - University of Toronto
Director - Grace Eaton
Director Statement

I made this documentary from October to December 2021. It follows the lives of about twenty first-year undergraduate residents at Victoria College at the University of Toronto. While illuminating the college experience, my film is also a representation of how empathy acts to foster community, especially post-COVID isolation. It is about the search for acceptance.

University residence is such a peculiarly cunning concept. I find that residences that are designed to build community, such as Margaret Addison Hall which is traditional-style with an open common room, give us the chance to meet new people and form relationships with people we would not know otherwise. Places like this allow us to find common ground even with those we seem to have nothing in common with. Living with others in a widely shared space forces you to form relationships with them.

The creation of this documentary took me nearly 3 months, including about 10.5 hours of interview footage alone. Once I finished filming, I was confused about where to begin editing. I started with the long montage that opens the film. About a day or two after, at 2AM, I was in my dorm room and the story outline just came to me and I wrote it all down. As I reflected on what I had filmed, I realized that so much of what the interviews and the film, in general, had focused on were the concepts of loneliness, isolation, and how individuals recover and move on from these experiences. The answer lies in empathy. In total, the editing process took me about 40-50 hours.

My project started as an investigation into the lives of university students and turned into an exploration of how empathy fosters intimacy. I will be forever grateful that I was given the opportunity to make this documentary and also that I have lived this life.