Attend an SCA Information Session
Upcoming Events
In-Person SCA Graduate Information Session
July 1, 2025 - December 24, 2025, Varies
SCA Courtyard and Online
Join the SCA Admissions staff for an in-person or an online information session to learn more about applying to the SCA graduate programs for the Fall 2025 semester. Topics will include an overview of the school, programs and facilities, financial aid, Q&A with staff and more!
Meditation Session with Sophia the Robot
November 18, 2025 - November 24, 2025, 12-1 pm and 4-5 pm
SCA Gallery
Daily Meditation Session with Sophia the Robot
Artistically Enhanced AI for Humanizing Robots
November 18, 2025 - November 24, 2025, Daily 10 am - 6 pm
SCA Gallery near the Coffee Bean
Trial demonstrations, posters and exhibits in preparation for our final exhibit in December
FREQUENCY OF HOPE
November 20, 2025, 7:00 P.M.
The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007
In Alaska’s rugged Mat-Su Valley, Erin Moore is a recovering addict and mother who lost her children, her voice, and nearly her life to addiction. Now she runs a beat-up rock-and-roll radio station, using the airwaves to speak honestly about recovery and second chances. As the station becomes a lifeline for others, Erin prepares for a different kind of stage — the Mrs. Alaska pageant — in a deeply personal attempt to reconnect with the family she lost. Frequency of Hope is a raw and redemptive portrait of a woman turning guilt into grace, shame into signal, and finding her way back home.
U.S. Job Market for Visa Holders
November 21, 2025, 2-3:30 PM
Virtual
Join the SCA Community Impact Council for a discussion of the U.S. job market for visa holders. Featuring:
Sophia Goring-Piard (Partner) and Eduardo Garcia (Associate) of the global legal services firm Fragomen, a leading global immigration law firm. They will present on trends among their corporate clients who are hiring international talent for the American media marketplace.
LA BOHÈME
November 23, 2025, 12:00 P.M.
Norris Cinema Theatre at the Frank Sinatra Hall, 3507 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90007
With its enchanting setting and spellbinding score, the world’s most popular opera is as timeless as it is heartbreaking. Franco Zeffirelli’s picture-perfect production brings 19th-century Paris to the Met stage as Puccini’s young friends and lovers navigate the joy and struggle of bohemian life. Sopranos Juliana Grigoryan, Angel Blue, and Aleksandra Kurzak trade off as the feeble seamstress Mimì, opposite tenors Freddie De Tommaso, Stephen Costello, Adam Smith, and Long Long as the ardent poet Rodolfo.
THE SECRET AGENT
November 24, 2025, 7:00 P.M.
Norris Cinema Theatre at the Frank Sinatra Hall, 3507 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90007
Brazil, 1977. Marcelo (Wagner Moura), a technology expert in his early 40s, is on the run. Hoping to reunite with his son, he travels to Recife during Carnival but soon realizes that the city is not the safe haven he was expecting.
LA GRAZIA
December 1, 2025, 7:00 P.M.
Norris Cinema Theatre at the Frank Sinatra Hall, 3507 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90007
Mariano De Santis is the President of the Italian Republic. No connection to any real-life presidents; he is entirely a product of the author's imagination. A widower and a Catholic, he has a daughter, Dorotea, a legal scholar like himself. As his term draws to a close, amid uneventful days, two final duties arise: deciding on two delicate petitions for a presidential pardon. True moral dilemmas, which become tangled in ways that seem impossible to unravel, with his private life. Driven by doubt, he will have to decide. And, with a deep sense of responsibility, that is exactly what this remarkable Italian President will do.
DUST BUNNY
December 1, 2025, 2:00 P.M.
The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007
Ten-year-old Aurora has a mysterious neighbor (Mads Mikkelsen) who kills real-life monsters. He’s a hit man for hire. So, when Aurora needs help killing the monster she believes ate her entire family, she procures his services. Suspecting that her parents may have fallen victim to assassins gunning for him, Aurora’s neighbor guiltily takes the job. Now, to protect her, he’ll need to battle an onslaught of assassins - and accept that some monsters are real.
STRANGER EYES
December 2, 2025, 3:00 P.M.
The Michelle and Kevin Douglas IMAX Theatre, RZC 119, Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, 3131 S. Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007
After the mysterious disappearance of their baby daughter, a young couple receives strange videos and realizes someone has been filming their daily life — even their most intimate moments. The police sets up surveillance around their home to catch the voyeur, but the family starts to crumble as secrets unravel under the scrutiny of eyes watching them from all sides.
CHAMPIONS OF THE GOLDEN VALLEY
December 2, 2025, 7:00 P.M.
The Michelle and Kevin Douglas IMAX Theatre, RZC 119, Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, 3131 S. Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007
After narrowly missing his chance to become Afghanistan's first Olympic skier, Alishah Farhang returns to the remote mountains of his homeland to inspire a vibrant new ski culture. Bringing together young athletes from rival villages with makeshift wooden skis and secondhand gear, he organizes a ski race like no other, uniting his community in a moment of joy, hope and triumph. When their world is suddenly upended, he and the athletes must call upon those lessons learned on the slopes to find their way forward.
MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG
December 3, 2025, 3:00 P.M.
The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007
Spanning three decades, Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Merrily We Roll Along charts the turbulent relationship between composer Franklin Shepard and his two lifelong friends — writer Mary and lyricist & playwright Charley. Originally produced on Broadway in 1981, then becoming an inventive cult-classic ahead of its time, Merrily We Roll Along features some of Stephen Sondheim’s most celebrated and personal songs.
THE TALE OF SILYAN
December 3, 2025, 7:00 P.M.
The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007
From the Oscar-nominated director of HONEYLAND comes a poignant and visually arresting story set in the heart of rural Macedonia. Nikola, a farmer grappling with the harsh realities of new government policies, finds himself unable to sell his land or crops. When his family leaves in search of a better life abroad, Nikola takes a job as a landfill attendant, where he encounters the injured white stork Silyan. As he nurses the bird back to health, an unlikely bond forms between man and animal. The result is a deeply moving film that touches on climate change, economic migration, resilience and the quiet power of connection.
MAGELLAN
December 4, 2025, 2:00 P.M.
The Michelle and Kevin Douglas IMAX Theatre, RZC 119, Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, 3131 S. Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007
At the dawn of the modern era, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan navigated a fleet of ships to Southeast Asia, attempting the first voyage across the vast Pacific Ocean. On reaching the Malay Archipelago, the crew pushed to the brink of madness in the harshness of the high seas and overwhelming natural beauty of the islands, Magellan's obsession leads to a rebellion and reckoning with the consequences of power. A vast, globe-spanning epic from Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz (Norte, the End of History), MAGELLAN presents the colonization of the Philippines as a primal, shocking encounter with the unknown and a radical retelling of European narratives of discovery and exploration.
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY (1993)
December 5, 2025, 7:00 P.M.
Norris Cinema Theatre at the Frank Sinatra Hall, 3507 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90007
Oscar®-winners Anthony Hopkins (1993, The Silence of the Lambs) and Emma Thompson (1992, Howards End) reunite with the acclaimed Merchant Ivory filmmaking team for this extraordinary and moving story of blind devotion and repressed love. Hopkins stars as Stevens, the perfect English butler - an ideal carried by him to fanatical lengths - as he serves his master, Lord Darlington, beautifully played by James Fox (The Servant). Darlington, like many other members of the British establishment in the 1930s, is duped by the Nazis into trying to establish a rapport between themselves and the British government. Thompson stars as the estate's housekeeper, a high-spirited, strong-minded young woman who watches the goings-on upstairs with horror. Despite her apprehensions, she and Stevens gradually fall in love, though neither will admit it, and only give vent to their charged feelings via fierce arguments. Marvelously acted by a supporting cast that includes Christopher Reeve and Hugh Grant.
SHAKESPEARE WALLAH (1965)
December 6, 2025, 1:00 P.M.
Norris Cinema Theatre at the Frank Sinatra Hall, 3507 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90007
Tony Buckingham (Geoffrey Kendal) and his wife Carla (Laura Lidell) are the actor-managers of a troupe of traveling Shakespearean actors in post-colonial India; they must grapple with a diminishing demand for their craft as the English theatre on the subcontinent is supplanted by the emerging genre of Indian film. Lizzie Buckingham (Felicity Kendal), the couple's daughter, falls in love with Sanju (Shashi Kapoor), a wealthy young Indian playboy who is also involved in a romance with the glamorous Bombay film star Manjula (Madhur Jaffrey). The Buckinghams, for whom acting is a profession, a lifestyle, and virtually a religion, must weigh their devotion to their craft against their concern over their daughter's future in a country which, it seems, no longer has a place for her. Like its title, Shakespeare Wallah is a film of unexpected juxtapositions and cultural conflict; it is a look at changing values in art, and an examination of the question of what it means to be indigenous to a place. The nomadic lifestyle of the poor players -- artfully shown through many scenes of their fretful peregrinations around India -- provides the visual enactment of the problem of the Buckinghams' rootlessness, as here we find the first Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala exploration of that subject, the great dilemma for Merchant Ivory characters from Lizzie Buckingham to Ruth Wilcox inHowards End. "Everything is different when you belong to a place. When it's yours," Carla Buckingham quietly and regretfully tells her daughter, the young Englishwoman who was born in India and has never stepped foot on the soil of her "home" country.
The Actor's Director Workshop
December 6, 2025, 11:00 A.M. - 7:00 P.M.
The Michelle and Kevin Douglas IMAX Theatre, RZC 119, Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, 3131 S. Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007
There is that rare breed of Director that just “knows” how to get the best out of the actor -- giving them a sense of freedom, inspiring courage, and bringing clarity. The opportunity in collaborative storytelling is finding ways to bring out the best in each other. Discover the most important aspect of filmmaking and performance -- the communication between directors and actors.
THE CITY OF YOUR FINAL DESTINATION (2009)
December 6, 2025, 7:00 P.M.
Norris Cinema Theatre at the Frank Sinatra Hall, 3507 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90007
28-year-old Kansas University doctoral student Omar Razaghi has won a grant to write a biography of Latin American writer Jules Gund. Omar must get through to three people who were close to Gund - his brother, widow, and younger mistress - so he can get authorization to write the biography.
A ROOM WITH A VIEW (1986)
December 7, 2025, 2:00 P.M.
Norris Cinema Theatre at the Frank Sinatra Hall, 3507 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90007
A Room With a View captured the attention of the world upon its release, bringing the novel by E.M. Forster to dazzling life in the Florentine countryside and in the well-appointed homes of the English Edwardian upper classes. A comedy of manners with a quick wit and impeccable comic timing, A Room With A View is also a portrait of the quiet solitude that lies beneath Forster's characters, and of the need for human connection in a world of rigid convention. The young Englishwoman Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter), arrives in Florence on a Baedecker-style grand tour with her aunt Charlotte Bartlett (Maggie Smith). Through a series of events involving English expatriates Miss Eleanor Lavish, an unflappable novelist (Judi Dench), and the Emersons, a free-thinking father and son (Denholm Elliot and Julian Sands), Lucy's life is changed forever under a loggia in Florence and in the Tuscan countryside.
MR. & MRS. BRIDGE (1990)
December 7, 2025, 5:00 P.M.
Norris Cinema Theatre at the Frank Sinatra Hall, 3507 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90007
Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward give "the performances of their careers" (Judith Crist) in Merchant Ivory's adaptation of Evan S. Connell's two novels Mrs. Bridge and Mr. Bridge, artfully combined into one screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Walter and India Bridge (Newman and Woodward) are a Midwestern American couple struggling to keep up with the changing world around them in 1930s America. Mr. Bridge, a stout-hearted, staunch paterfamilias, quietly lords over his children -- Ruth (Kyra Sedgwick), Carolyn (Margaret Welsh), and Douglas (Robert Sean Leonard) -- and his wife, who is warm and kind but lacks the independence to forge an identity apart from her husband. As the music, the mores, and the politics of Kansas City are transformed in front of them, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge attempt to keep up with the drama of a changing society within their own family: Ruth wants to go to New York and become an actress; Carolyn is determined to marry a man whom her father deems unsuitable; Douglas is embarrassed by his mother's attentions and rebukes her attempts at intimacy.
MISTRESS DISPELLER
December 8, 2025, 3:00 P.M.
The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007
In China, a new industry has emerged devoted to helping couples stay married in the face of infidelity. Wang Zhenxi is part of this growing profession, a “mistress dispeller” who is hired to maintain the bonds of marriage — and break up affairs — by any means necessary. Offering strikingly intimate access to private dramas usually hidden behind closed doors, Mistress Dispeller follows a real, unfolding case of infidelity as Teacher Wang attempts to bring a couple back from the edge of crisis. Their story shifts our sympathies between husband, wife and mistress to explore the ways emotion, pragmatism and cultural norms collide to shape romantic relationships in contemporary China.
NO OTHER CHOICE
December 9, 2025, 7:00 P.M.
Norris Cinema Theatre at the Frank Sinatra Hall, 3507 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90007
From director Park Chan-wook and based on Donald E. Westlake's novel THE AX, the story follows Man-su on his desperate hunt for a new job after his abrupt layoff from the paper company he served for 25 years.
Working with Archives: Protection, Preservation, and Storytelling
December 10, 2025, 7:00 P.M.
The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108, George Lucas Building, USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, 900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007
In an archive, every recording, frame, song, and reel is a story worth retelling. But as formats change and technology evolves, how can you ensure that your archive’s stories are able to be shared long into the future? Join Andrea Kalas, VP of Media and Archival Services at Iron Mountain Media & Archival Services, and award-winning SCA alumni filmmakers Ross Dinerstein, Leslie Iwerks, and Ben Proudfoot, in conversation with SCA Professor Ted Braun, as they discuss the function and value of media archives both to safeguard the legacy of the past and to inspire stories in the future.
CTCS-469: BILLY WILDER'S HOLLYWOOD
January 13, 2026 - May 4, 2026, 10:00 A.M. - 1:50 P.M. on Tuesdays
Norris Cinema Theatre at the Frank Sinatra Hall, 3507 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90007
This class will focus on the work of writer-director Billy Wilder, from the noir of Double Indemnity and Sunset Blvd. to the comedy of Some Like It Hot and One, Two, Three, the biting satire of Ace in the Hole to the melancholy romance of The Apartment. As with any auteurist class, we'll explore Wilder's biography, influences, and stylistic and thematic preoccupations, including his status as a Jewish refugee of European fascism and his formative experiences in Weimar Germany. His background informed his supposed 'cynicism' but also his empathy for those on the margins of respectability and victimized by the powerful. We will also use his career as a means to explore larger phenomenon of the Hollywood Studio System including the absorption of European refugees, Classical Hollywood style, the studio system and its decline, film noir, the rise of independent production, gender and stardom, and the breakdown of the Production Code and censorship.
IML-499: Wanna Make Your Own DIY Music Video?
January 14, 2026 - May 6, 2026, 4:00 P.M. - 6:50 P.M. on Wednesdays
USC School of Cinematic Arts
Taught by Professors Evan Hughes and Michael Bodie. No D-Clearance Needed!
CTCS-464: CONS AND COMEDY
January 14, 2026 - May 6, 2026, 6:00 P.M. - 10:00 P.M. on Wednesdays
Norris Cinema Theatre at the Frank Sinatra Hall, 3507 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90007
Why do con stories fascinate us, and what makes them different from more pedestrian crime fictions? Why do cons work? What makes us susceptible to them, and how do they reflect the structure of our desires? How does the world of cons react to technological change, and how are certain cons made possible or impossible by specific material, technological, and media affordances? How are cons presented in films, and how has our image of the con changed in the past century? What do we find funny about them, and how have con stories been used to elicit comedy in film? Can we place the current golden age of technologically-aided cons in a longer trajectory? All these questions and more will guide our inquiry into the cinematic genre of the con and its somewhat contentious relationship with comedy.
IML-460: AI and Creativity
January 15, 2026 - May 7, 2026, 10:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M. on Thursdays
USC School of Cinematic Arts
This hands-on exploration of AI introduces new tools and creative techniques while also examining the myriad controversies related to this paradigm-changing technology in a theory/practice format.