Delaney Maitland in “Alla Prima”
(Tamil Nadu, India & Pinewood, England – February 14, 2023)
In a hub of South India’s rich Tamil cinema, a PennWest student documentary is earning deserved recognition for women in arts. The Kollywood International Film Festival has this month named Alla Prima its Best Women’s Film. This follows an Official Selection designation by England’s Lift-Off Sessions.
Alla Prima profiles painter Delaney Maitland. Maitland is a student in PennWest University’s highly-regarded Art program. She specializes in wet-on-wet abstraction. The artist traces her enthusiasm for the alla prima (or “all at once”) method to a pivotal experience with a reclined female figure. “I told the model it was okay if they moved around a little bit. I captured their motion as well [as]… light and color. Something about it is really special.”
Collaborating with student filmmakers Luke Costello, Jaylin Wyatt, Haley Giffin, and Dalton Thomas, director Madison Kuhns completed the film in partial fulfillment of requirements for Professor Brian Fuller’s Non-Fiction Filmmaking course. Since Fuller’s arrival at Edinboro in 2018, class content has centered on the history and creation of short-form documentaries. Alla Prima joins The Pump-King, Good Curling, Roll Out, and Detecting Deception, in a list of the course’s student-produced films which have gone on to win festival accolades.