Silas Immanuel can write a script, set up lighting, shoot a scene, edit the sound, layer in captions, produce a documentary and fill an auditorium. He can also keep the balance sheet, tracking income, expenses and, hopefully, rising assets.
Immanuel is a 23-year-old senior film production and accounting double major from New Delhi, India. He works at ITS Media and FiveCore Media and helps lead the International Student Club.Immanuel has worked on various video productions over the past few years, most notably his award-winning documentary “Goshen: A Sundown Town’s Transformation,” which won first place for Best Documentary from Collegiate Broadcasters Incorporated in 2023, the Award of Excellence from the Broadcast Education Association in 2024, a Telly Award for Best Short Form Documentary and more. He is also currently working on a documentary about the Cora Dale House mental health facility in Goshen.
His excitement for filmmaking as an art form and family connections have led him to pursue his passions at Goshen College.
“I’ve been quoted multiple times for calling Goshen my longest SST experience ever,” Immanuel said. “Every day I feel like I find out something new about American culture or more specifically GC culture. The college has so many diverse perspectives and I’m so blessed to really be able to experience all those perspectives.”
Immanuel’s love of video production traces back to his childhood. “To be honest, it all started with Minecraft,” Immanuel said. “I used to watch a lot of Minecraft YouTubers and they brought a ton of joy in my life. I started making Minecraft YouTube videos and it was just enjoyable, you know? Nobody watched them but my classmates, but it brought me joy to know that I added something to someone’s day.”
Immanuel’s older sister and GC graduate, Tabitha Immanuel ’18, was a double major in theater and film production before he started attending the school. He points towards her as his biggest inspiration and motivator for his filmmaking career and the decision to attend GC.
“[My sister] has just been a huge part of who I am and who I’m growing to become so as a result she’s a huge part of the films I make,” Silas Immanuel said. “Any time I make any film, any script I write, she is the first one to read it … I can count on her opinion and for her to be frank with me, ‘Hey Silas, this sucks!’ it’s really refreshing to have someone like that and so I think my sister has been the most crucial part of my journey so far.”
Tabitha Immanel attended GC from 2014 to 2018. She believes that her passion for filmmaking influenced her brother. “Silas had a creative gene from the get-go,” Tabitha Immanuel said. “I think that in some ways my inclination and passion towards filmmaking inspired Silas to pursue that journey.” Tabitha, trying to describe her brother in a few words, said, “Silas is a genuine person; he says what he believes and is not afraid to stand up for it … All I can say is he’s the best brother I could have asked for.”
Silas Immanuel said that Kyle Hufford, associate professor of communication and executive director of FiveCore Media, is one of his biggest inspirations and motivators. “After [my sister] I would say Kyle Hufford has been a really important part of where I am,” said Immanuel. “I can only say I have a career in film because he has allowed me to make one documentary and now he’s allowing me to make a second one.”
Silas Immanuel directed, edited and wrote the documentary “Goshen: A Sundown Town’s Transformation,” which had its world premiere in 2023 at the Goshen Theater and has since been screened several more times. Pre-production for the documentary began as early as the summer of 2022 when Silas Immanuel was only a first-year film production major. The film has a runtime of 24 minutes.
“The idea came to me when I was having a conversation with an international student of African descent about what it’s like being in Goshen right now,” Silas Immanuel said. “It really took a turn when I heard from my host parents’ son about Martin Luther King Jr. coming to Goshen and not being able to stay because African-Americans weren’t allowed to stay here.”
The term “sundown town” refers to majority caucasian communities that practiced spoken or unspoken racial segregation in which African-Americans were, by social and cultural means, excluded from living in or spending the night in a given town. Ku Klux Klan rallies were being held in Goshen as recently as 1996.
“I just asked Mr. Hufford if he would let me make it and I thought that there was no way he would let me do something so crazy and beyond what a freshman at the time could even tackle,” Silas Immanuel said. “But he let me do it and he supported me. I’m so grateful for that.”
Silas Immanuel is currently working on a new documentary with Isabel Massud, a junior film production major, about a woman named Cora Dale living in Goshen in the late 1800s and early 1900s who spent years in a state mental hospital. The documentary is expected to be shown in the spring semester.
“From what we know right now, it’s going to be a story about what mental health was like in Goshen once upon a time, where it is today and where it should be,” Silas Immanuel said. “When it comes to mental health, we feel we’re at the dawn of a new era. We’re learning more things every day and finding more ways to serve our community.”
