Free movies and lying under the stars attracted more than 1,200 ASU students and Tempe community members to the eighth annual ASU Art Museum Short Film and Video Festival on Saturday.
The festival was held on the Nelson Fine Arts Center plaza and showcased 18 films of various genres, formats and lengths.
"It's arranged to be a fun night and be educational for the audience," said John Spiak, an ASU Art Museum curator and festival organizer.
"People come expecting more Hollywood narrative films, and we give them a combination of animation, documentary, narrative and experimental films that might be a little tougher in subject matter," he said.
The films ranged from the animated "Downhome Cookin'," about a hungry hillbilly cooking road kill and lasting less than two minutes, to the 12-minute "Untitled Book Series," about the cultural infatuation with popular media, anxiety and narcissism.
More than 300 films from 27 states and 21 countries competed this year; Spiak and Southern California filmmaker Bob Pece chose the finalists.
Spiak and Pece picked "Vanity" and "LaBrea" as the Juror Choice Award and the film with the most audience votes. "Hello" won the LeBlanc Audience Choice Award.
Audience Choice Honorable Mention and the AZ Award went to "garpenfargle" for the best Arizona-made film.
Audience members had mixed reactions to the films; the comedies got the most applause, and the political and abstract films got the least favorable response.
Keira Hart, a dance graduate student, said her favorite films, "84715" and "Vanity," were both well-constructed.
"I haven't gone to this before, but I'd definitely go again," Hart added. "It's nice that it's outside. It takes us out of our normal space for an evening."
Reach the reporter at annemarie.moody@asu.edu.
