After months of preparation, the STU Production Society and the St.Thomas University Student Union joined forces to bring a short film festival to life on campus.
With popcorn in one hand and soda in the other, the student filmmakers and crew watched their final projects on the big screen in the Ted Daigle Auditorium on March 26.
The film festival also had a panel of judges composed of English Professor John Muse, Dean of Humanities Andre Loiselle, digital media Professor Olivia Parker and Student Union VP Administration Pearl Gyamfi.
A total of five short films were submitted to the festival.
Rafaella Ortega, a member of the STU Production Society, participated in one of the films alongside her friends Alberto Chávez and Isabella Mármol.
Ortega said that although this first film festival was a challenge to get off the ground, she looks forward to seeing this event happen in the next few years.
“We have a variety of movies and subjects. Also, I’m pretty sure that they are all different from each other. They don’t follow the same vibe,” said Ortega.
Ortega’s film, Perspectives, is a comedy that highlights the differences between male and female perspectives on romantic relationships.
“All of what you saw was like a two-hour conversation before we [did] the movie and we realized we had no idea we were recording … basically, the movie is based on that conversation,” said Chávez during the Q&A session with the judges.
Perspectives won Best Original Screenplay at the end of the evening.
Another standout film, Where Silence Lives, directed by Tin Belinić, was voted Best Picture by the students who attended the event.
Where Silence Lives follows the main character, Nathan, as he navigates grief, blurring the line between dreams and reality.
The film’s use of colour grading, particularly blue hues and yellow tones, was planned to convey feelings of isolation and dream-like states.
Belinić also experimented with green for a soft-focus effect. He also said the idea for the film was inspired by a video game called “Silent Hill,” which influenced the narrative of grief and self-blame.
Even though this was Belinić’s first time directing, he said that it all came out naturally and he didn’t have to intervene as much.
“Martina and Adrian, they’re both great actors, so my directions were bare minimum,” he said. “I let them do their own variation of the lines. We let them have fun, like experimental characters.”
Bad Luck, directed by Jacob Rose, won third place for Best Picture awarded by the judges. The film embraced a wimpy-kid-style narrative, portraying the life of a student who just couldn’t catch a break.
Goals, directed by Brandon Athenford, follows the life of an athlete who is constantly trying to overperform to get to a specific goal. It also depicts the mental toll of balancing being an athlete and having a student life.
Goals won second place for Best Picture.
First-year journalism student Polina Kozlova took home the biggest award of the evening, winning Best Picture for her short documentary – My Home.
With great emotional depth and outstanding storytelling, Kozlova recounts her personal experience of being forced to leave her hometown in Ukraine because of the war.
Kozlova filmed herself without a script, addressing themes of anger, pain and sadness as she reflected on her emotions, not understanding why her hometown was under attack and not knowing what the future held.
“There’s no guarantees I’ll be able to go back home and there’s no guarantees I will have a home. And I think the [ending of the film] actually gave me a really strong emotional connection with that, because it’s something that I’m really worried about,” said Kozlova.
Kozlova plans to donate her prize money to a charity organization in Ukraine.
“It’s my story and I kind of wanted to share this with people … It might be hard for me,” she said. “I kind of wanted to get the people’s attention on the problem because it’s not over and it keeps going and it’s not getting better.”
Gyamfi believes this event fostered a sense of community, especially during Wellness Week.
“[The short-film festival] is very important because now everyone is struggling to find that inspiration, that creativity. And as a liberal arts school, this is one of the many things we converse about,” she said.
Gyamfi encourages students to keep engaging with events like this on campus.
“It’s good that we know we have these practical things to encourage the talent that we have here on campus.”
