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Celebration of the AFI Conservatory Class of 2025 Commencement
Includes Industry Spotlights
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Los Angeles, CA, August 8, 2025 – Today, the American Film Institute (AFI) conferred Doctorates of Fine Arts degrees, honoris causa, for contributions of distinction to the art of the moving image upon trailblazing actress and producer Viola Davis and legendary film editor and sound designer Walter Murch during the AFI Conservatory’s Class of 2025 commencement ceremony at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
Davis was introduced on stage by groundbreaking filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythewood and Murch was introduced by Academy Award®-nominated cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (AFI Class of 1969). The commencement celebrated the AFI Fellows’ completion of two years of concentrated study in AFI’s MFA program. The 143 graduating filmmakers specialized in one of six disciplines – Cinematography, Directing, Editing, Producing, Production Design or Screenwriting – and collectively created the equivalent of 10 feature films during their two years at AFI. The class features 52% female filmmakers, 20% domestic Fellows of color and 52% international filmmakers.
Bob Gazzale, AFI President and CEO, opened the ceremony by welcoming the graduating Fellows and their friends and families.
In accepting her AFI Honorary Degree, Davis remarked, “You have the power to come home to that one thing that made you want to do this. To be healers, to be alchemists, to buck the system, to see life just a little bit different, and therefore you don’t just leave something for people. You leave something in them.”
Murch, in accepting his AFI Honorary Degree, shared with the graduating class, “When thinking about the future, it occasionally pays to be unreasonably bold.”
Davis and Murch join an esteemed group of distinguished past recipients, including Robert Altman, Maya Angelou, Saul Bass, Angela Bassett, Kathryn Bigelow, Mel Brooks, Carol Burnett, Anne V. Coates, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ernest R. Dickerson, Clint Eastwood, Roger Ebert, Nora Ephron, Jodie Foster, Lesli Linka Glatter, Lawrence Herbert, James Earl Jones, Lawrence Kasdan, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Angela Lansbury, Spike Lee, David Lynch, Helen Mirren, Rita Moreno, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Paul Schrader, Quentin Tarantino, Lily Tomlin, Robert Towne, Cicely Tyson, Haskell Wexler, John Williams and Michelle Yeoh.
Following the conferment of the honorary degrees, Susan Ruskin, Dean of the AFI Conservatory and Executive Vice President of AFI, addressed the Class of 2025 and praised their commitment and creativity. “Today, you are no longer just Fellows – you are now alumni of this great institution. You join a community of artists across the globe who are finding their purpose in their own work, every day.”
The ceremony concluded with class representative Kirby Saxton sharing, “I’m told that we are the future of the medium. If that’s true, then it’s our obligation to be true human beings. To show courage in these hard times. The courage to tell the stories that we have in our hearts.”
In addition to the commencement ceremony, AFI is hosting industry spotlights featuring the work of the graduating filmmakers. The spotlights are part of AFI’s Bridge to the Future program for Conservatory graduates. The Cinematography Spotlight will take place on Saturday, August 9 and will feature a collection of three-minute films all shot on motion picture film by AFI Conservatory Fellows. The Directing Spotlight will take place in October during AFI FEST presented by Canva at the TCL Chinese Theatres. The Production Design Spotlight took place earlier this week on the AFI Campus. Additional Discipline Spotlights will be announced soon.
Applications to the AFI Conservatory open on September 5, 2025. Learn more at AFI.edu.
About Viola Davis
Viola Davis is a critically revered artist, activist, producer, philanthropist and New York Times best-selling author. Davis has earned EGOT status through her Oscar®, Emmy®, Grammy, and multi-Tony Award wins. She was honored in 2017 by Time 100 as one of the world’s most influential people, in 2022, was honored with the Public Counsel’s William O Douglas Award for her commitment to social justice causes and in 2025 received the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes. Davis has partnered with multiple programs to eradicate childhood hunger in the United States. She started the Davis-Tennon Foundation, which is committed to driving meaningful change by funding initiatives that address critical needs within Rhode Island communities
In 2012, Davis and her husband Julius Tennon founded their production company, JuVee Productions, with its focus on giving a voice to the voiceless through strong, impactful narratives. JuVee creates scripted and non-scripted television, film, documentary, theater, and digital immersive content for global audiences. It remains at the forefront of innovation, while developing and producing a library of socially relevant entertainment, defined by inclusion. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Davis received an Honorary Doctorate during its 109th Commencement Ceremony and she also holds an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree from her alma mater, Rhode Island College.
About Walter Murch
Born in New York City in 1943, Walter Murch is a pioneering film editor, sound designer, writer and director. His 56-year career in features began in 1969 with Francis Coppola’s THE RAIN PEOPLE and includes work on THX 1138, THE GODFATHER trilogy, AMERICAN GRAFFITI, THE CONVERSATION, APOCALYPSE NOW, THE ENGLISH PATIENT, THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, RETURN TO OZ , COLD MOUNTAIN —and many other iconic films, working with directors such as George Lucas, Fred Zinnemann, Philip Kaufman, Anthony Minghella, Kathryn Bigelow, Sam Mendes and Brad Bird.
Murch revolutionized sound design, becoming the first person credited as a sound designer in the 1979 Palme d’Or winner APOCALYPSE NOW. He has been nominated for nine Academy Awards® (six for picture editing and three for sound) and has won three Oscars®: for best sound on APOCALYPSE NOW (for which he and his collaborators devised the now-standard 5.1 sound format), and for Best Film Editing and Best Sound for his work on THE ENGLISH PATIENT. This unprecedented double win in 1997 made history at the Oscars®, following his earlier double BAFTA wins for Best Sound and Best Picture Editing in 1974 for THE CONVERSATION. THE ENGLISH PATIENT was also the first digitally edited film to win an editing Oscar®.
About the American Film Institute (AFI)
The American Film Institute (AFI) is a nonprofit organization with a mandate to champion the moving image as an art form. Established in 1967, AFI launched the first comprehensive history of American film and sparked the movement for film preservation in the United States. In 1969, AFI opened the doors of the AFI Conservatory, a graduate-level program to train narrative filmmakers. The Conservatory, which counts Deniese Davis, Affonso Gonçalves, Susannah Grant, Matthew Libatique, David Lynch, Melina Matsoukas and Rachel Morrison as Alumni, is ranked as one of the top film schools in America. AFI’s enduring traditions include the AFI Life Achievement Award, which honors the masters for work that has stood the test of time; AFI AWARDS, which celebrates the creative ensembles of the most outstanding screen stories of the year; and scholarly efforts such as the AFI Catalog of Feature Films and the AFI Archive that preserve film history for future generations. AFI exhibition programs include AFI FEST Presented by Canva and year-round exhibition at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Maryland. AFI Movie Club is a destination for movie lovers from around the world to celebrate and engage with the art form every day. Other pioneering programs include workshops aimed at elevating emerging storytellers and technology, including AFI DWW+ and the AFI Cinematography Intensive Workshop. Read about all of these programs and more at AFI.com and follow us on social media at Facebook.com/AmericanFilmInstitute, YouTube.com/AFI, X.com/AmericanFilm, TikTok.com/@americanfilminstitute and Instagram.com/AmericanFilmInstitute.
About the AFI Conservatory
The AFI Conservatory opened its doors in 1969 to an inaugural class that included Terrence Malick, Caleb Deschanel and Paul Schrader. Today, the Conservatory offers a two-year MFA degree in six filmmaking disciplines: Cinematography, Directing, Editing, Producing, Production Design and Screenwriting. In a collaborative production environment, AFI Fellows learn to master the art of storytelling, collectively creating up to 175 films a year. Fellows actively participate in the entire life cycle of a film, from development through production and exhibition.
Alumni of this elite program, ranging from modern masters to bold new voices defining the state of the art form, include Andrea Arnold, Darren Aronofsky, Ari Aster, Deniese Davis, Sam Esmail, Brad Falchuk, Affonso Gonçalves, Susannah Grant, Liz Hannah, Patty Jenkins, Janusz Kamiński, Matthew Libatique, David Lynch, Melina Matsoukas, Polly Morgan, Rachel Morrison and Wally Pfister, among others.
Press contact:
American Film Institute
Shari Mesulam, [email protected]
