Classic Couple Academy

When musician Jerome Adams flies into Cape Town for his father’s funeral, he finds his dad has bequeathed him the Bo-Kaap community’s beloved Goema Club. Along with the Club comes the care of The Umbrella Men, the legendary minstrel troupe led by his father. Soon Jerome discovers the Club comes with a huge bank overdraft, […]

Classic Couple Academy Recommends Patrick and The WhaleTIFF DocsDirector: Mark Fletcher Patrick Dykstra spends his life to traveling the globe, following and diving with whales as an award-winning cameraman. During a dive in Dominica, he forged a bond with a female sperm whale that changed his life. The whale he named Dolores engaged with him […]

In I Like Movies socially inept 17-year-old cinephile, Lawrence Kweller is self-absorbed and movie-obsessed. Driven by his desire to attend film school at NYU, he gets a part-time job at Sequels video store, fully convinced he can earn $90,000 to meet his tuition needs. There Lawrence forms a friendship with the older store manager, Alana. […]

Award-winning cameraman Patrick Dykstra spends his life to traveling the globe, following and diving with whales. On one dive in Dominica, his close encounter with a female sperm whale changed his life. He named her Dolores and the two engaged in mutual study—her studying him as he studied her. Patrick and the Whale follows Patrick’s […]

All photos by Chris Chase for Classic Couple Academy.

Classic Couple Academy Recommends El AguaTIFF Contemporary World CinemaDirector: Elena López Riera It’s the languid days of Spanish summer in a town near the Segura river. Seventeen-year-old Ana, played by Luna Pamies in a breakout film debut, experiences her first love under the disapproving eyes of the townspeople. Local legend claims that every few decades, […]

Addiction is an all-encompassing force impacting the lives of the afflicted and everyone around them. Documentary film Our American Family provides an honest, unfiltered look at a close-knit Philadelphia family impacted by generational substance abuse. If you are a young person who is worried about your own substance abuse or a parent or teacher with […]

It’s been a minute since we offered a straight-up Classic Couple Academy update. We’ve been up to some things, mostly interviewing an amazing roster of filmmakers whose work was shown at the the 2022 Tribeca Festival and the 2022 HollyShorts Film Festival. We’re thrilled to have covered these two film festivals as credentialed media. Speaking of […]

Two short films, official selections programmed for screenings at the 2022 HollyShorts Film Festival August 11-20, 2022, highlight the work of authors who embrace their identities to teach others about what it’s like to be viewed as different in society. Each shares in their own words the importance of being true to one’s self and […]

Elsa Sjunneson is many things: professor and media critic, skilled fencer and hiker, published author and writer for Marvel Comics’ first Women of Marvel, Assassin’s Creed, and the Magic the Gathering universe. She’s also the first Deafblind winner of the Hugo Award and the Aurora Award. Through her disability and queer rights activist work, Elsa […]