ERIK NUDING
eriknudingfilms@gmail.com
EDUCATION and HONORS
Northwestern University, Chicago, IL 2022 – 2024
Documentary Media MFA.
- Awarded a fully funded University Fellowship in a two-year program.
- Participated in the Reflective and Effective Teaching Program.
- Participated in the Energy, Culture and Society (ECS) graduate cluster research.
- Lead TA in introductory production courses.
- Coordinated 2024 Hoffmann Visiting Artist Program with Pedro Costa
University of California, Berkeley 2017 – 2021
BA, Interdisciplinary Studies. 3.9 GPA.
- Departmental honors and Distinction
- Elected to academic honor society, Phi Beta Kappa (ΦBK), due to outstanding academic merit.
Berkeley Digital Film Institute – Berkeley, CA 2019
Graduate Level Certificate, Film Production.
GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS
2026 – Creative Ireland Open Call Grant – Echoes from the Lakeshore
2025 – Agility Award – The Irish Arts Council
2025- Live, Work, Play Grant – Sligo County Council
2025 – Culture Night Grant – Sligo County Council, Ireland.
2025 – Festival Incentive Grant Recipient – Northwestern University
2025 – Studio Bursary Award – The Model Art Museum, Sligo, Ireland.
2023 – Sundance/Sandbox Production Fund Recipient – With Their Backs To The Sky
2023 – Buffet Institute for Climate Crisis and Media Arts – With Their Backs To The Sky
2023 – Graduate Research Grant – Northwestern University
2023 – Graduate Travel Grant – Northwestern University
2022 – University Fellowship (Full tuition coverage) – Northwestern University
2022 – Buffet Institute for Climate Crisis and Media Arts- With Their Backs To The Sky
2022 – British Council Exhibition Travel Grant – An Ornithologist’s Daughter.
SCREENINGS
2025 – Abbey Arts Center, Screen Service Ireland – screening of Looking for Sam
2025 – ACE Artist screening and talk – Northwestern University
2024 (At)tension Symposium Selection – Northwestern University – With Their Backs to the Sky
2024 DA Films – Streaming Contract – An Ornithologist’s Daughter
2023 Shortwaves Film Festival – Out of Competition Screening of An Ornithologist’s Daughter.
2022 DOCSIRELAND – Irish Shorts Official Selection, National Premiere of An Ornithologist’s Daughter
2022 Visions Du Réel – Official Selection, World Premiere of An Ornithologist’s Daughter
2022 Achill Island Film Festival – Official Selection- An Ornithologist’s Daughter
2021 Made At Berkeley Showcase- Elected as one of only 5 artists for An An Ornithologist’s Daughter
2021 BAMPFA Film Festival – Official Selection, Telepatía
2021 Campus Movie Fest, Jury Award, Telepatía
2020 Eisner Awards, UC Berkeley – 48
2020 Detmold International Film Festival, Germany – Official Selection, 48
2020 Milan Digital Week, Fake Lake exhibition, Hold My Beer, Bro
2019 Campus Movie Fest, UC Berkeley – Jury Prize winner, L is for the Way You Look at Me
RESIDENCIES / SUPPORTS
2026 – ParisDOC Works-in-Progress 2026, Cinéma du réel
2025 – AEMI Tier 2 Support Program – Dublin, Ireland
2025 – Cine Movimiento Editing Residency, Morcone, Italy – With Their Backs to The Sky
2024 Sheffield Doc Fest Meet Market Selection – With Their Backs To The Sky
2024 FidCampus Residency Selection – FIDMarseille
2023 NI Screen Pitch – With Their Backs to The Sky
2023 DOCS IRELAND Marketplace- With Their Backs To The Sky
TEACHING
ATU – Galway City, Ireland 2025
Masterclass in Film Production
Lead documentary workshop and presentation on feature film With Their Backs to The Sky
University of Antananarivo, Madagascar Visiting Filmmaker 2025
As part of our community impact campaign, leads technical film production workshops in cinematography, directing and field sound recording to Malagasy students.
Northwestern University 2022-4
Graduate Student Instructor
Led the weekly technical instruction classes of introductory digital filmmaking courses in cinematography, sound recording, video and sound editing, folly creation, lighting.
Created detailed lesson plans and in class presentations.
Facilitated rough cut feedback on student projects.
Advised students in one-on-one and group office hours.
UC Berkeley
President – GIANT Filmmakers 2019-20
As President of the GiANT Filmmaking Society, led weekly lectures and hands-on workshops in cinematography and pre production to freshmen and sophomores.
TECHNICAL QUALIFICATIONS
Proficient in Premiere Pro and Pro Tools (sound design and mix)
Cinematography skills: 8mm, 16mm and digital
Production: Lighting setups, Sound field recording, Folly recording, Scriptwriting
Languages: English (native), Malagasy (Intermediate) Spanish (basic), French (basic)
Experimental Analog Techniques: Watergrams, Phytograms, EcoProcessing, Film Burial, Film Decomposition
Darkroom Photo Developing
FILMOGRAPHY
With Their Backs to the Sky (Madagascar, 2026, 90 minutes, In Post Production)
In the depleted forests of Madagascar, a family of bat-catchers teams up with local biologists studying endemic fruit bats. When increasingly strange weather disrupts their mission, colonial legacies surface whilst ancestral knowledge endures.
A Pool in Which I Play (Ireland, United States, 2026, 25 minutes, In Post Production)
When severe storms threaten to break down the emotional walls built between the filmmaker’s mother and grandmother, shared memories, dreams and reflections of water begin to flow. As mystical allegory meets climate reality, A Pool In Which I Play pulsates in the brackish breath space between tension and release.
Whale (USA, 2024, 9 minutes, 25 seconds)
Shot on a malfunctioning Super 8 camera, WHALE is an experimental mediation on 13th Lake, NY. During an uncannily warm winter, we witness a progression of freeze to thaw. Under the surface, colonial phantoms linger.
Looking For Sam (USA, 2023, 5 minutes, 34 seconds)
Over the course of one night from dusk to dawn, a bat biologist wanders the Indiana Dunes where a child was recently lost. Gradually, the wind consumes all.
An Ornithologist’s Daughter (Ireland, 2021, 30 minutes) PW: skreen1955
In the isolated mountains of rural Ireland, a chicken farmer and her son resurrect an elusive image of recently deceased parents. An Ornithologist’s Daughter explores the fluid continuum of life and death between one woman, her birds and their shared environment.
Telepatía (Colombia, 2020, 5 minutes) A therapeutic reimagining of family history and memory through archival home video.
Hold My Beer Bro (United States, 2020)
‘Hold my beer, bro’ reflects on how we interact with portrayals of traditionally masculine ideals and male relationships, using archival footage, screen capture and filmed footage. The call of “hold my beer” initiates acts of recklessness, bravery, and strength, but it also acknowledges and mocks the absurdity of archaic unattainable masculine ideals. In this film, attempting to perform those ideals leads to bodily harm, death, disgrace and emasculation; the ultimate display of masculinity becomes the self-destruction or self-harm of the male body itself.