The PHD movie

The film was adapted from Jorge Cham’s online comic strip and was shot at Caltech in partnership with the university. It follows four graduate students: Cecilia, Mike, Tajel and the one whose name is never given. All four are trying to find some balance between research, teaching and their own lives; the thesis does not get finished, the meeting with the adviser keeps being put off, and the time spent in the lab turns into life itself. That it was shot in the university’s own buildings gives the film a texture close to documentary. The film runs on a humour that anyone who knows academia from inside will recognise at once, and it defends the thing it is joking about. Vahe Gabuchian’s sixty five minute film was completed in 2011.