David de Rozas is a filmmaker, multidisciplinary artist, and PhD student in the Media Arts and Practice program at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. His research inquires about the politics of memory by looking at places, bodies, and materialities (both human and nonhuman) as sites implicitly or explicitly shaped by the unfolding historical authority, regimes of truth, and institutions of power. David’s award-winning films have been screened in festivals and film-curated series worldwide, including NY MoMA, Visions du Réel, FullFrame, Sheffield Doc/Fest, True/False, Kassel DocFest, or the Smithsonian African American Film Festival. De Rozas has been a Flaherty Fellow in 2019, a VIA Art Fund Production grantee in 2020, an artist-in-residence at Headlands Center for the Arts in 2021, and a USC Annenberg Fellow in 2023.

What interests you most about your specific division or program at SCA?
As a researcher and interdisciplinary artist, my work aligns with how the Media Arts and Practice doctoral degree understands contemporary creation by combining critical thinking and making in a reciprocal and equal manner. I’m interested in the program's practical and theoretical openness to methodological experimentation favoring hybridization and contamination through a transdisciplinary curriculum that expands traditional notions of what cinema and new media are, do, or can be.

Why did you choose SCA?
I choose to apply to SCA’s MA+P program because is one of the few doctoral degrees in the US where the relationship between theory and practice is understood as an interdependent approach to conducting research. As a filmmaker and visual artist, SCA faculty and its community are world references in new media creation and critical studies. That said, it was the SCA faculty who gave me the opportunity to be part of this school and program which was always my first choice if accepted.

What has been your biggest challenge at SCA so far?
I’m not sure if I will name them challenges, but doing a PhD is demanding in terms of daily commitment and intellectual-critical openness. Challenges are always opportunities for learning and unlearning; creation, growth, and transformation; these challenges a part of the reasons to be doing this degree.

What has been your biggest success?
My biggest success is having the daily fortune of being surrounded by many talented artists, researchers, and scholars at either the student or faculty level who inspire my research and practice. It sounds like an easy achievement, but it’s not. As an artist and scholar, it’s a privilege to daily be part of a space for critical thinking, making, sharing, and engagement.

In addition, I have the fortune of being a 2024-2025 fellow at the Center for Ethnographic Media Arts (CEMA) where I’m hoping to complete a 16mm experimental work related to my doctoral research; and I am a Research Fellow on Sustainability at USC Library Special Collections, where I have been looking at Primary Sources relevant to my investigation to complete a series of physical and digital creative outputs at the crossroads of humanities, sustainability studies, and new media creation.

These awards are expanding the fields of study and the communities I’m interested in working with.

Is there a project you are working (or have completed) that you're especially proud of?My doctoral research inquires about Downtown Los Angeles's ongoing urban renewal after the city adopted a new land use and zoning policy doubling the area where housing can be built. Echoing worldwide’s recent urban redevelopment process (New York, London, San Francisco), the actual revitalization anticipates a new and different Downtown, of both economic and social progress as well as inequality and class division. My research situates itself within Downtown’s current space and state of in-betweenness, using film and new media as memory devices to critically document and interrogate the overlapping dissonances, contradictions, and multiple layers of reality of this radical urban transformation.

How has SCA prepared you so far for the career you want?
My career interests are polyhedric, ranging from making, researching, collaborating, and teaching. I understand my time at SCA as part of this ongoing learning process at all these levels. At this moment my program is preparing me to re-frame, expand, and narrow down my doctoral research interests.

What advice do you have for prospective students looking to apply to SCA?
Humility, sincerity, respect, and patience. Trust your intuition. We need creative and critical voices like yours; students whose work advocates for social and environmental justice. We trust your vision and your work matters to us.