Senior Honors Thesis 2026
- Apr 30
- 5 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Every year, Tufts Film and Media Studies seniors push the boundaries of storytelling, research, production, and creative experimentation through their thesis projects. The Senior Honors Thesis screening in the FMS Film Festival celebrates the culmination of months, and often years, of development, collaboration, and artistic exploration.
This year's projects span genres, formats, and themes, reflecting the wide-ranging interests and perspectives of our graduating seniors. From narrative filmmaking to screenwriting, the Class of 2026 demonstrates the creativity and critical insight that define the Film and Media Studies community at Tufts.
Below, explore each senior thesis project, learn about the ideas behind the work, and get a glimpse behind the scenes of the creative process.
Eran Avni-Singer
Failed Transmission
When Peter abandons his body for a digital simulation, his fiance, Renn, must enter the
machine to save their marriage. Blending elements of body horror, science fiction, and romance,
Failed Transmission explores the ties that bind us to the people in our lives and the technology
we use. Digital and practical effects are used in tandem to create the retro-futurist visuals
featured in the movie. After years of working on his friends’ films at Tufts, writer/director Eran
Avni-Singer is thrilled for his thesis to be screened in Barnum 08.
Failed Transmission was also chosen to represent Tufts Film and Media Studies in the Independent Film Festival Boston Student Showcase on April 25 at the Somerville Theatre. Congratualtions to Eran and his entire cast and crew on this wonderful accomplishment!
Daniel Cece
Badger Lake
Badger Lake is a show about four recent college graduates working at a summer day
camp in New Jersey. It’s Gabe’s first year, yet his two best friends TV and Katie are veteran
counselors. On the first day, Gabe meets Maya and they instantly hit it off. These four spend
each episode working together, experiencing all the wonderful and strange moments a summer
day camp has to offer. None of them are sure where they’re going to end up after the summer
ends or when they’ll see each other again–but there’s something beautiful about not knowing.
Cole McIlvaine
The Appointment
An 86-year-old man confronts the quiet symptoms of dementia through a visit to his barber and a call from his son. This is a character-driven short film about an aging man named Alan contemplating change during his haircut with his longtime barber, Michelle. The film aims to portray these early symptoms of dementia as accurately as possible, while also highlighting the small moments that influence our lives.
Tri Nguyen
Family Meal
When Minh, a prideful Vietnamese line cook, arrives late to a Lunar New Year rush, a fight breaks out over his prized knife. But when the rush dies and the crew sits down for the family meal, Minh finds that the brother he lost was standing next to him the whole time.
Amba Raghavan
Naiharwa
Naiharwa, meaning “a woman’s childhood home”, is a semi-autobiographical dramedy set in suburban Chennai, shot on location with non-actors. Kamala returns to her childhood home in India after years abroad to care for her ailing daughter and aging parents. Caught between her mother’s unyielding faith and daughter’s resistance to help, she is absorbed into domestic cycles where a quiet disillusionment surfaces. In fleeting moments alone, she feels a growing pull inward, toward something larger. As the routines of home persist, Kamala drifts between obligation and surrender.
Samuel Ringrose
Tea
Tea explores the night and aftermath of the Boston Tea Party on December 16th, 1773. Angry citizens of Boston, provoked by Founding Fathers like Samuel Adams and John Hancock, destroyed $1.7 million worth of tea from the British East India Company as a protest against unjust imperial taxation. Tea is the pilot episode of a planned mini-series called Warren, which follows the Boston doctor and Son of Liberty Joseph Warren as he is swept up in the growing chaos before the revolution, depicting key moments like Warren sending Paul Revere on his famous midnight ride before the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and culminating in Warren’s death at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17th, 1775.
Ethan Sims
Immaculate Degeneration
A portrait of the director’s grandmother, Judy, combining visual textures from her surroundings in southeast Florida to display her point of view, both tangible and hallucinated, as she adapts to the loss of her vision. She explores how her life has become inextricable from her condition, battling fears, discovering silver linings, and overcoming tribulations in a life unseen. Seeking to accept a world without sight and make sense of her twilight years, she finds solace amongst her family and friends
Quinn Sobieraj
TMI!
Welcome to TMI! In this heartfelt preteen comedy pilot, the energies of PEN-15 and Sex Education collide as confident, curious, and unapologetically comfortable 13-year-old Harper Hayes enrolls in “Teaching Mindful Intimacy,” an intensive, church-run sex ed program. Harper finds herself surrounded by an ensemble of more traditional middle school personalities, soon to become her friends. Two devoted facilitators work to transform a church basement into a sex-positive safe space while scrambling to keep the program alive as enrollment hangs by a thread. It’s eighth grade, it’s sex ed, it’s church - what could possibly go wrong?
Ilai Sternoff
Susan
Striking a balance between dark comedy, absurdity, and shattering realism, Susan chronicles a chic, suave, but lonely and alcoholic six-time divorcee and the 21-year-old film student hired to make a documentary about her. Susan leads a life of lonesome luxury, but has nobody to share it with. After her makeup artist leaves her on account of how abrasive and unpleasant Susan is as a boss, Susan hires Ilai, a film student, to make a documentary painting her as a wonderful, extravagant woman. Ilai, a cocky kid with untempered ambitions, must reckon with whether or not he wants to make a documentary that, in essence, lies about its subject matter.
Tom Xiao
Future Days
Future Days is a very personal film and is meant to express my feelings and frustrations towards people who put themselves on a pedestal while looking down on others. It communicates anger, bitterness, loneliness, and disappointment towards expectations. Miles is a character I based on myself, who sets off to live life on his own in solitude, because of the constant disappointment he feels from the people around him. The film explores: what do you do, when your expectations have been constantly damaged by disappointment. Would or should you still try to love and see the best in people?
Keyu (Jack) Zhu
Yozhua
In a remote lakeside border town reshaped by tourism in southwest China, a woman, burdened by her "Mosuo" coming-of-age ritual, mistakes a young admirer for her childhood friend, forming a delicate and uncertain bond. As past and present begin to blur, their bond reveals not only their longing for home, but also the subtle dissonance between lived experience and the roles imposed by cultural expectation.
The Film and Media Studies Department congratulates all graduating seniors on their remarkable work and dedication. These projects represent not only technical and creative achievement, but also the collaborative spirit and intellectual curiosity that shape the Tufts community.
We invite you all to explore the projects, support our student creators, and celebrate the Class of 2026.
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