Summer 2024: The World War II Foundation is taking student filmmakers and historians to Germany and Austria to focus on the rise of Nazism and antisemitism in Germany, which led directly to the beginning of World War II. Application submissions are now closed and finalists have been selected for this trip.
Summer 2025: Applications will open in the Fall 2024 semester for the next European destination to shoot an all new WWII focused documentary subject.
Check out the student projects from the trips in 2022 and 2023.
The nonprofit World War II Foundation honors the legacy of the veterans and survivors of one of history’s most important time periods by producing educational documentary films. The documentaries air on television networks around the world via American Public Television. Each film ranges from 60 to 90 minutes in length and are available for free to educators, students and the public. The goal is to preserve these important stories for current and future generations. Learn more about the foundation.
Each summer, students are selected to shoot a WWII-focused documentary in Europe. During the trip, students will be documentary film production crew members, rotating around to shadow different roles with the cinematographer, director, producer and historian. At any point, you might be carrying heavy equipment, shooting B-Roll footage with a professional camera or drone, researching a shooting location, helping prepare to interview a subject, being interviewed yourself about the experience or the topic, working with the historian and producing your own content for social media/photo/video/written formats to bring back to Newhouse. You will leave the experience with a professional credit on the documentary film that will air on PBS affiliates or similar platforms.
After the trip, the WWII Foundation will keep you informed, sending you edited sequences that are a work in progress and allow you to ask questions about the post production process. As part of the crew, you may be invited to premiere events, panels and screenings.
The additional photo/video/written content you have decided to produce will need to be completed before the start of the fall semester.
If you have any questions or want more information, please contact Shaina Holmes (shholmes@syr.edu) and Cheryl Brody Franklin (csbrody@syr.edu).
Learn more about television, radio and film assistant professor Shaina Holmes, who leads each WWII Foundation x Newhouse trip.
Students Get Real-World Film Experience Telling Untold Tales of WWII
Newhouse Takes Europe: Summer 2023
Summer activities have a lasting impact for Newhouse students and faculty
After work on PBS Tuskegee Airmen documentary, Newhouse students attend D.C. premiere
Shot in summer 2022, released in 2023:
“The Tuskegee Airmen: Return to Ramitelli”
“Bob Dole, Italy and World War II”
Shot in summer 2023, released in 2024: