Ross Kauffman ’89 won the Grand Prize for best full-length documentary at the 2022 RI International Film Festival for his film Of Medicine and Miracles.
Congratulations to Ross, who has won several accolades for his filmmaking, including an Academy Award in 2005 for his documentary film Born Into Brothels about the children of prostitutes in Calcutta’s red-light district.
Every year, the RI International Film Festival awards the $2,000 Winifred Brownell scholarship to a talented student at the University of Rhode Island working in any aspect of filmmaking. This year’s recipient, Joseph Waits, is an outstanding honors student with a 4.0 perfect average. He has had an interesting life worthy of a film–sailing around the world to every continent, including recently crewing on a ship bound for Gibraltar. Joseph received a grant to film Gates of Hell in Turkmenistan, pending government approval, and was praised by his faculty for his work as a filmmaker and as a crew member on other’s films. Tom Zorabedian stated that Joseph’s “ambitious and bold full-length screenplay has a provocative narrative structure that incorporates a keen reflection of America in 2021 and today.”