For Franklin Academy faculty member and filmmaker Josh Weissbach, two recent film festival selections mark a meaningful career milestone and an opportunity to show students how far their creative work can reach.
Weissbach’s collaboration with filmmaker Ben Balcom, a correspondence, has been selected for its world premiere at the New York Film Festival as part of “Currents Program 1: The Hidden Dimension.” His film portrait, made in collaboration with Franklin Academy student Spirit Elzam, a spectrum of screen tests No. 02, has also been selected for the Festival des Cinémas Différents et Expérimentaux de Paris.
While the films grew from different collaborations, both reflect Josh’s commitment to experimentation, personal expression, and the possibilities of making art with others.
A Collaboration More Than 20 Years in the Making
Developed over approximately four years, a correspondence brought Weissbach and Balcom back into creative partnership more than two decades after their early collaborations as
undergraduates at Hampshire College.
The project began with a birthday gift: Balcom sent Weissbach a roll of film and invited him to capture material that Balcom would then respond to. Working from Connecticut and Milwaukee, the two exchanged rolls of film and developed the project through a similar back-and-forth editing process. The resulting film explores correspondence, parallel experiences, intimacy, and visual metaphors.
For Weissbach, the New York Film Festival selection represents a long-held goal realized after more than a decade of submitting work.
“Having it happen with a correspondence, a collaboration with a close friend and filmmaker I’ve known for more than 20 years, makes it even more significant,” he said.
A Franklin Student’s Creative Voice Reaches Paris
a spectrum of screen tests No. 02, created by Weissbach in collaboration with Franklin Academy student Spirit Elzam, is part of his ongoing series of film portraits made with Franklin students and alumni.
For this portrait, Weissbach and Spirit began with a visual experiment: layering images so that a second image, filtered in red, gradually emerges throughout the film. Together, they paired that process with Spirit’s personal story, exploring their choice of name and evolving gender identity throughout high school.
The Paris selection continues Weissbach’s nearly decade-long relationship with the festival and its parent organization, Collectif Jeune Cinéma, which has presented his individual work and collaborations with his daughter and other Franklin students.
“It’s particularly meaningful that this relationship now provides opportunities for my students as well,” Weissbach said. “Seeing their work presented internationally, in a major center for experimental art like Paris, gives them a sense that their creative work can reach audiences well beyond Franklin.”
An Artistic Practice That Informs His Teaching
Weissbach’s work as an active filmmaker directly shapes what he brings to Franklin’s classrooms. Developing ideas, editing, managing deadlines, and navigating technical challenges require many of the same skills he helps students build: creativity, communication, decision-making, organization, and perseverance.
He encourages students to experiment with both analog film and digital video, explore possibilities within the material they have, and recognize that compelling work can take many forms.
By collaborating with students and helping their films reach audiences nationally and internationally, Weissbach makes those possibilities tangible. His own practice also offers a model for sustaining a creative life beyond school—continuing to make art, pursue ambitious goals, and grow through challenges.
At the heart of that work is a message that aligns closely with Franklin’s approach to learning: students’ interests, perspectives, and creative voices have value, and there are meaningful opportunities to share them with the world.
