Spielberg backs new Jordan film school
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 The University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, together with Jordan’s Royal Film Commission, will open a graduate school offering a 3-year MFA in filmmaking. The Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts will accept students from around the region,
including Israel, starting the fall of 2008. Construction of the campus in the special economic zone of Aqaba will start in early 2007.
The school grew out of discussions between Jordan’s King Abdullah and filmmaker Steven Spielberg, a USC trustee. “When His Majesty the King approached me on the subject of a Jordan-based, world-class film school serving every country in the Middle East, including Israel, I immediately saw the importance and significance of such a venture,” Spielberg said in a release. Spielberg’s relationship with the Jordanian royal family stretches back to the 1989 filming of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
The course of study aims to give students “all the skills they need to be an independent filmmaker,” says Claire Naber, project manager for the new Institute. Naber expects that the school’s graduates will work in Jordan’s film industry, as well as in the region, but also hopes that they will help communicate a regional vision to the West.
She said that the Commission has not yet received much comment on the school’s proposed inclusion of students from Israel. “Of course there will be many opinions. But we’re committed to following a moderate, open path.”
USC professors traveled to Jordan to run three-week workshops for Jordanian students in July of 2005 and 2006, and will return next year.
According to Naber, the Institute will announce its board of directors before the end of November. The Institute plans to raise funds from sources “all over the world,” she said. Information on budgets and on the governance structure would not be available until the board of directors is in place, she said.
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