A capacity crowd filled the Harkins Valley Art Theatre on Tuesday night to take in student-produced movies on the big screen for the final evening of the ASU Student Film Festival.
“The films were much better than last year,” said marriage and family studies senior Lexi Voegele as she walked out of the theater onto Mill Avenue after the final screening.
Hosted by the Herberger College’s School of Theatre and Film, the fourth annual festival was held this Monday and Tuesday and featured a collection of short films that film students spent semesters writing, directing, editing and producing.
The festival included works were from genres such as comedy, documentary and horror.
The film and media production program director, F. Miguel Valenti, introduced the event and explained the approaches that the program takes in guiding the students through filmmaking.
Valenti said that students are continuously taught about ethical decision-making in filmmaking, but that “does not mean you are going to see a bunch of ‘warm and fuzzy’ films,” he said.
He warned the audience that the students are not censored in any way, and free to express themselves in their work however they please.
A total of 34 films were presented over the course of the two-day event, including film production senior Dominic Best’s “Diary of a Sailor’s Girl” — a documentary following a U.S. Navy sailor and his fiancee, who met and fell in love shortly before he was deployed for duty.
“You’re always learning; you’re always able to do more,” Best said, explaining how he became engrossed with the couple’s story.
Filmmakers saturate themselves into what they are making and it becomes a big part of their lives, Best said.
Audience members were asked to cast a vote for their favorites of eight short films entered in a competition.
Along with the audience votes, industry professionals judged the films and three winners received prizes.
Third-place winner Wasef El-Kharouf took home $150 in cash and filmmaking equipment for his film about an egotistical band member called “I Am the Best.”
The second-place prize of $350 went to “Beautiful Addiction” by Nick Ramirez.
Doug and Stephen Kennedy won first place overall in the event with their comical short film, “The Dan Peters Interview.”
In the film, a journalist is faced with having to make a tough ethical decision of whether to twist a boring professional baseball
player’s words around to make a story more interesting.
After the eight competition films were shown, 26 short films were showcased.
Reach the reporter at bryan.brougham@asu.edu.
