For college-aged filmmakers it can often be hard to find venues in which to showcase work.
But for the last three years, the Arizona Student Film Festival has given students of all ages an opportunity to do just that.
On Saturday at the Harkins Valley Art Theatre, ASU film sophomore Nick Ramirez took home several honors for his film “Beautiful Addiction,” a story about drug addict’s constant struggle between living with drugs or living a clean life.
“[The film] deals with the choice an addict makes when it comes down to drugs or everything else in their life outside of their addiction,” Ramirez said.
“Beautiful Addiction” was described on the film festival Web site as “a young man’s struggles to choose between life in a colorless world surrounded by those who love him, and life in a lonely world, surrounded by beauty.”
Ramirez’s use of color and special effects in the film drives the difficulty of that choice home.
Showing the hard, sometimes ugly and even frightening world of a drug addict was the film’s goal.
The film struck a chord with the judges, winning first place in the college short film category as well as “Overall Winner” for the event.
This film festival was the first time that Ramirez’s project appeared on the big screen.
“It’s a surreal moment,” Ramirez said. “It is also a little nerve-wracking to have that many people seeing your work.“
“At the same time, receiving recognition for something you worked so hard on is a great feeling,” he said.
Ramirez is only at the beginning of what looks to be a promising career in film. Recently earning an internship with Universal, he will be heading to New York City in a week to continue studying film.
Several other ASU film students also won awards at Saturday’s festival.
Christopher Price’s film “Day 17” won first place in the Microshort category, and Sean Hennessy took second place in Microshort for his film “Cough.” Andrew Hendrix took second place in the short film category for his film “The Artist (Le’ Artist).”
Reach the reporter at tom.kuipers@asu.edu.
