Maria Giménez Cavallo (CC’14) and Jackson Giuricich (CC’14) were recently married in Paris, which they have called home for a number of years. Both Columbia graduates and Reid Hall alumni, the story of their relationship spans the Atlantic, three languages, a love for France, and a lot of hand-written letters. For Valentine's Day, we sat down with the couple to talk about their story, their experience at Reid Hall, and their thoughts on the City of Love.
Maria, a New Jersey native, began studying French at the age of sixteen and took part in Columbia's Undergraduate Program in Paris, housed at Reid Hall. An ardent lover of French cinema, Maria, in a remarkable story of drive and perseverance, became a close collaborator for the acclaimed French-Tunisian director Adbellatif Kechiche working as Assistant Director, Editor, Casting Director and Artistic Collaborator on the Mektoub, My Love series of films. She is now pursuing directing and her own projects (animafilms.net).
Maryland native Jackson had also been drawn to France from an early age, and received his B.A. in History and Literature from Columbia before enrolling in the M.A. in History and Literature at Reid Hall. His research focused on the relationship between idolatry and vocation in Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time through the prism of his writings on John Ruskin.
The two met while still undergraduates in New York by way of the French Cultural Society at Columbia. While they were not at Reid Hall at the same time, their mutual love of French culture and the Parisian way of life forms an integral part of their story. After completing their studies, they found each other again in Paris. Now the two live just minutes away from Reid Hall and are in the process of writing a feature film together, influenced by their academic experience in the Columbia Core curriculum.
