Anyone worried about the future of film criticism can rest easy: the Locarno Film Festival Critics Academy is back and will, over the course of 10 days, train a group of young cinephiles in the art of film writing.

The program—organized by Indiewire in conjunction with the Swiss Association of Film Journalists, FRED Radio, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center—has brought together a group of writers from Europe, North America, and India to attend films, workshops, and even a masterclass with 2001: A Space Odyssey effects technician and Silent Running director Douglas Trumbull. Soon, you'll have the chance to read what they've been working on at the festival, but first we'd llike to provide you with an introduction to the critics-in-training. Here are FilmLinc Daily's favorite facts from Indiewire's critic Q&As

► Katelyn Trott of Fullerton, CA “tend[s] to favor blockbuster movies and cult films because they are generally most responsive in supplying their fans with access points surrounding the main content (the film).”
► Adriana Floridia (Toronto, Canada), Laya Maheshwari (Mumbai, India), and Ronan Doyle (Galway, Ireland) all mentioned their love of Sidney Lumet's Making Movies.
► Ingrid Raison of Paris has written about the femme fatale figures in the films Gun Crazy (1950) and Detour (1945).
► James Berclaz-Lewis' favorite film writing is Catherine Wheatley's Michael Haneke's Cinema, for its Kantian reading of the contemporary auteur.
► Michael Pattison of Gateshead, England named Before You Know It (which screened at Film Society earlier this summer) as his favorite film of 2013 so far.
► Tara Karajica of Belgrade approaches film as a historian: “I am, along with other fellow historians, an advocate of 'historiophoty', or as Hayden White would put it, 'the representation of history and our thought about it in visual images and filmic discourse' and the way film is, on its own terms, a way of exploring the past and what it actually means to us.

Make sure to check back regularly for the critic's upcoming pieces. You can also follow their festival experiences in real time by following the writers on Twitter

For any aspiring critics among our readers, make sure to apply to the second anual NYFF Critics Academy! Application information is here. The deadline is Friday, August 9, so don't wait!