09/24/2026
Grad Student Spotlight: Cristian Madueno! Awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 2024, Cristian is pursuing an MFA in Film Directing at Temple University. His thesis film, Un Corto de Verano (A Summer Short), begins filming in early September 2024.
Born in 1992 in Salou, Tarragona, Cristian transitioned from chemistry to storytelling and graduated in Comparative Literature from the University of Granada in 2022. After studying Self-Referential Cinema at Cuba's EICTV, he wrote and directed the short film Un corto de invierno (2023) [A Winter Short] and earned a Master’s in Screenwriting from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. There, he co-created the series Correos y Telégrafos (Posts and Telegraphs), winning the Andalucía South Boost at the South International Series Festival.
The shoot for Un Corto de Verano (A Summer Short) took place over four days in early September in Salou, near Barcelona (Spain), with crew coming from both Madrid and Barcelona. The story deals with the impact of mass tourism and the strange summertime reality experienced by locals in a resort town. Amid all-inclusive resorts and sunburnt tourists, Julia (20), a local tour guide, finds herself in a fallout with Mertle (20), a young British tourist, over a romantic entanglement-and over the right to raise their voice in the place that (to them) matters most: a British karaoke bar.
