International Exchange Student Wins Prestigious CSU Media Award
Selina Madeira Dolscheid
By Nicole Troy
On October 26, 2022, international exchange student Selina Madeira Dolscheid won the CSU Media Arts Award for Best Short Screenplay at the prestigious CSU Media Arts Festival.
Dolscheid attended Cal Poly last academic year as an international exchange from Stuttgart Media University in Germany.
“I feel honored to have won the CSU Media Arts Award for Best Short Screenplay. It is an amazing competition that fosters the passions of CSU students, and I especially want to encourage exchange students to seize these unique opportunities that Cal Poly offers,” Dolscheid said.
Dolscheid’s major at Stuttgart Media University is online media management, which she describes as a mix between computer science, business and media production.
“For my exchange year I wanted to emphasize my focus on media production but also to explore and try things I otherwise wouldn't like ballet and philosophy,” Dolscheid said.
While attending Cal Poly, Dolscheid took several classes within the College of Liberal Arts including graphic communication, interdisciplinary studies in the liberal arts, women’s, gender, and queer studies, theatre and dance, journalism and English.
“I had never studied film or written a screenplay before taking ISLA 340 with Randi Barros and TH 350 with Ramón Esquivel, and it directly changed the trajectory of my career. I am incredibly thankful for these professors for offering creative learning opportunities that aren't in the spotlight so much,” Dolscheid said.
Dolscheid describes her award-winning film, “Embraer E-175," as “a female-driven story about honoring your past and the moral and emotional complexities of parenthood.”
“With this story, I wanted to challenge myself and take on someone else's perspective. I am far from becoming a mother, but I am excited about the prospect, so I thought, ‘what if I write about someone that has had a child but didn’t want to be a mother,’” Dolscheid said.
Watch the synopsis of Embraer E-175.