Hargrove Prize 2024 Awarded to Priya Nambiar for Short Documentary The Forgetting Season
EASTBRIDGE, Vt. — The American College of Arts and Performing Arts has announced that third-year Film & Media Arts student Priya Nambiar (BFA ’25) is the recipient of the 2024 Hargrove Prize, the college’s most distinguished student award in the arts. Nambiar received the honor for her short documentary The Forgetting Season, a 22-minute work exploring the experience of families navigating early-onset dementia in rural Vermont. The prize, which carries a monetary award of $750, was presented at the annual Spring Showcase closing reception on the evening of Saturday, May 11, 2024, in the Hargrove Pavilion Grand Hall.
The Hargrove Prize is funded through the Hargrove Family Endowment, established in 1989 by alumni benefactors Eleanor and Robert Hargrove (both Class of 1961) to recognize outstanding student creative work demonstrating artistic excellence, originality, and commitment to craft. The prize is open to students in all departments and is awarded annually by a panel of faculty jurors and one invited outside reviewer. Since its founding, the endowment has supported more than three dozen prize recipients across every discipline offered at ACAPA.
Work: The Forgetting Season (short documentary, 22 min., 2024)
Award amount: $750
Endowment: Hargrove Family Endowment, est. 1989
Presented: Spring Showcase Closing Reception, May 11, 2024
About The Forgetting Season
The Forgetting Season follows three Vermont families over the course of a single winter as they cope with a parent or spouse experiencing early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Nambiar, who grew up in Montpelier and has family members who experienced cognitive decline, spent eight months in pre-production developing relationships with her subjects before filming began in November 2023. The film was shot entirely in and around Eastbridge and the surrounding Northeast Kingdom, making use of natural winter light to reinforce the film’s themes of memory, seasonal loss, and the quiet rhythms of rural life.
The jury cited the film’s restraint and emotional precision, noting that Nambiar allowed her subjects to guide the documentary’s structure rather than imposing a conventional narrative arc. The work incorporates observational footage, archival home video, and sparse voiceover, all without music.
— Jury statement, 2024 Hargrove Prize Committee
The film was produced under the supervision of Associate Professor of Film & Media Arts Dr. Claudette Moreau, who serves as Nambiar’s faculty advisor. Production support was provided by the ACAPA Media Arts Equipment Pool and a student project grant from the Film & Media Arts Department. Post-production editing was completed in ACAPA’s Hargrove Pavilion digital editing suites during the spring 2024 semester.
Nambiar said she intends to submit The Forgetting Season to several regional and national documentary festivals in the coming months. She is currently in the early development phase of her senior thesis project, also a documentary, which she expects to complete in spring 2025.
Spring Showcase 2024 — Closing Reception
The Hargrove Prize announcement was the culminating event of the 2024 ACAPA Spring Showcase, held May 8–11 in venues across campus including the Hargrove Pavilion Main Stage, the Gideon M. Aldrich Black Box Theatre, the Prentiss Gallery, and Rehearsal Hall C. The Showcase is ACAPA’s annual end-of-year celebration of student work across all departments, featuring performances, screenings, exhibitions, and installations.
This year’s Showcase drew an estimated 1,400 attendees over four days, including prospective students, alumni, and members of the Eastbridge community. The closing reception on May 11 was attended by approximately 280 guests and included remarks by ACAPA President Dr. Loretta Finch-Oduya, Dean of Academic Affairs Prof. Harriet Sloane, and Hargrove Family representative Margaret Hargrove-Pitts, granddaughter of the endowment’s founders.
In addition to the Hargrove Prize, the closing reception included the presentation of the Jurors’ Choice Awards, given in each of ACAPA’s seven academic departments. These awards carry no monetary component but are selected by departmental faculty panels as a recognition of exceptional work presented during the Showcase.
2024 Jurors’ Choice Award Recipients by Department
| Department | Recipient | Work / Project | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Film & Media Arts | Priya Nambiar | The Forgetting Season (short documentary) | 3rd year |
| Music — Performance | Tobias Wrenfeld | Solo piano recital: works by Schubert, Kapustin, and Wrenfeld (original composition) | 4th year |
| Music — Composition | Asha Okonkwo-Bell | Canopy, for string quartet and electronics (world premiere) | 3rd year |
| Theatre Arts | Marcus Delacroix-Sung | Performance: All That Remains (devised solo work, directed by Delacroix-Sung) | 4th year |
| Dance | Yemi Adewale | Threshold (choreography and performance, contemporary/West African fusion) | 2nd year |
| Visual Arts | Ingrid Solberg-Maki | Cartography of Grief (mixed media installation, Prentiss Gallery) | 3rd year |
| Creative Writing & Literary Arts | Devin Okafor | The Bellman’s Route (short story collection, excerpts read at Showcase) | 4th year |
Faculty jury panels for the Jurors’ Choice Awards reviewed all work submitted for Showcase inclusion and cast ranked ballots prior to the opening of the event. Recipients were notified privately before the closing reception. In addition to the departmental awards, the jury for Film & Media Arts noted honorable mentions for second-year student Cass Kowalczyk’s experimental short Groundwater and for Rei Matsumoto’s animated documentary Kumo, also a second-year project.
Remarks from the Recipient
Nambiar, who accepted the award before a full room in the Hargrove Pavilion Grand Hall, thanked her faculty advisor, her documentary subjects, and her crew. She dedicated the prize to her grandmother, Kamala Nambiar, who passed away in February 2024 during the film’s post-production.
— Priya Nambiar, remarks at Spring Showcase closing reception, May 11, 2024
About the Hargrove Prize and Endowment
The Hargrove Family Endowment was established in 1989 with an initial gift from Eleanor Hargrove (née Whitmore, BFA ’61, Vocal Performance) and Robert Hargrove (BFA ’61, Theatre Arts), both of Stowe, Vermont. Eleanor Hargrove, who served on ACAPA’s Board of Trustees from 1978 to 2002, passed away in 2017; Robert Hargrove in 2021. The endowment was established, in the words of the founding gift letter, “to ensure that the most adventurous and honest student work at ACAPA receives the recognition it deserves, regardless of department or discipline.”
The Hargrove Prize has been awarded annually since 1990. The prize amount was set at $500 from 1990 to 2009 and was increased to $750 beginning in 2010 through additional contributions to the endowment. The endowment is administered by ACAPA’s Office of Institutional Advancement. Nominations for the prize are submitted by departmental faculty each spring, with a college-wide jury convening in late April to review submitted works and select the recipient.
Previous Hargrove Prize recipients include 2023 winner Julian Ferreira-Moss (Theatre Arts, for his direction of Scenes from a Smaller Country), 2022 winner Dara Hennessey (Music Composition), and 2021 winner Yuki Tanaka-Brown (Visual Arts). A full list of past recipients is maintained by the Office of Academic Affairs.
Media contact: ACAPA Office of Communications — communications@acapa.edu — (802) 555-0174
For information about the Hargrove Family Endowment, contact the Office of Institutional Advancement at advancement@acapa.edu.