Rate My Professor Marni Zelnick

Marni Zelnick is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Film and Television at Boston University’s College of Communication, where she has served since Fall 2020. Prior to this, she was Visiting Assistant Professor from Fall 2019 to 2020 and Adjunct faculty from Fall 2017 to 2019. As Associate Chair of the Film & Television Department since 2022, she collaborates with the Chair on department goals, oversees daily operations, manages student and faculty issues, drafts budgets and search memos, assists with Academic Program Review, develops curriculum including a new MFA Program in Production, organizes production safety guidelines, and coordinates events such as the Redstone Film Festival and Fleder-Rosenberg Screenplay Contest. She holds an MFA in Film from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2012) and a BA in English Literature & Creative Writing, with Film & Television Studies, from Dartmouth College (2001, summa cum laude).

Zelnick teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in film and television producing, screenwriting, and production. She developed a new three-part course path for MFA Screenwriting students: Writing the Social Purpose Short, Directing for Screenwriters, and Producing the Social Purpose Short, along with a cross-college collaboration course pairing journalism and screenwriting students. Her committee service includes the Curriculum Committee, FTV Search Committees, DEI Committee, Center for Social Impact Communication founding committee, Tenure & Promotions Task Force, and Faculty Council. An award-winning filmmaker, she wrote, directed, and produced Druid Peak (2014), a coming-of-age story that won 11 Best Narrative Feature festival awards, and received the Sloan Feature Film Production Grant ($100,000), Sloan Writing Grant ($5,000), and Roger King Award ($10,000). She produced films including The Adderall Diaries (2016), Maladies (2013), and The Letter (2012), and wrote screenplays such as Roe v. Wade (2016), Roxana (2015), and Couples (2016), several sold to producers including James Franco.