Duke Student Wins Academy Award for Student Film

MFA student Lei He won a Student Academy Award for her film ’Drifting‘

On the left, two people talking in a mine. On the right, a black and white image of a miner.
On left, Lei, director of “Drifting,” speaks with a coal miner on location in the mine. On right, a still image from Lei’s Academy Award–winning film (Courtesy of Lei).

This is a summary of a story written by Cara August on Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

Lei He grew up in a coal-mining region of China, acutely aware of the struggles of marginalized communities.

Now an MFA student at Duke, she focused her camera lens on the topic – successfully. A student in the Master of Fine Arts in Experimental and Documentary Arts program, she recently took top honors in the Alternative/Experimental category in the 53rd Student Academy Awards for her film, “Drifting.”

It received a gold placement – the top ranking – in that category earlier this week at the Toronto International Film Festival.

“Drifting is both a very personal and highly universal story,” said Tom Rankin, who directs the MFA program. “Our MFAEDA program has forever benefited from the global concerns and backgrounds of our students, and Lei’s film and the Academy’s acknowledgement of her artistry bear witness to the power of innovative approaches to documentary.”

He employs observational filmmaking and visual experimentation, including symbolic imagery, movement and hybrid forms. “Drifting” is a silent, black-and-white meditation on labor, memory, dignity and time. 

“I was honestly very surprised,” she said of learning that the film had won. “When I made ‘Drifting,’ I didn’t have any expectations for how far the film might go. I was simply trying to explore the boundaries of my own filmmaking and, at the same time, use the film as a way to pay tribute to my father’s generation.” 

Lei was in China when she learned that “Drifting” had become a finalist. She said the news left her so excited that she could barely sleep. The film is now eligible for consideration at the 99th Academy Awards in March 2027.  

She credits Duke’s Documentary Arts program with reshaping her approach to filmmaking. The program stresses experimentation, mentoring and creativity, which she says gave her the confidence to move outside her comfort zone.  

“The idea for ‘Drifting’ had been somewhere in my mind for many years,” she said. “My first semester at Duke challenged my previous ideas about cinema, documentary and art, and gave me the confidence to approach this very personal story in a completely different way. Duke gave me the space and the courage to finally turn the idea waiting inside me into a film.” 

Read the full story on Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.