By Andres Torres
Cal Poly Pomona hosts the return of Campus Movie Festival for students interested in expressing their creative talent and showcasing student issues and experiences through film.
After a three-year hiatus, CMF has come back to CPP to include the campus in a nationwide competition against other colleges where groups of students of all ages are able to participate.
“We go across the entire nation to different college campuses giving students the opportunity to make their own films by giving them free laptops, cameras, software, music, tripods”literally everything they need to make their own movie,” said CMF promotional manager Josh Burkholder.
With CMF partnerships such as Elfenworks interested in social injustices and young adult storytelling, CMF encourages students to tell their stories without requiring a set theme for each film, allowing them to create unique stories.
“It’s a good way to express ideas, there’s always something going on in students life, and film is a good way to express themselves,” said Student Activities and Programs assistant intern April Castro.
With light restrictions on what can be in the films and what stories students can tell, college students are given an opportunity to express creativity with light limits.
“The way the [Campus Movie] festival works is that students are allowed to submit any type of movie they want “any genre, any style,” said Burkholder.
CMF has worked in collaboration with Associated Students, Inc. to encourage student involvement, which has been essential to creating a greater interest within the student body while making it a worthwhile experience to those involved.
“It’s a really great opportunity to meet lots of people and also have fun,” said first-year architecture student Jean Olmstead. “Even if you don’t have experience in filmmaking you can still learn so much and have so much fun.”
While not all movies submitted will be shown during the screening, ASI officials will be picking the best 16 films submitted and screening them for the students in the Bronco Student Center. With pre-screening prizes and rewards for best actor, best cinematography and ensemble crew, students are allowed to display talent in more areas than one amongst their peers.
According to Castro, ASI will choose a council of student peers and faculty to judge each of the 5-minute student films.
The final short films were submitted on Oct. 17 with a screening in the Bronco Student Center Ursa Minor Suite to follow on Oct. 22 at 7 p.m.
With over 40 teams ranging from two to 10 people in each group, CPP is among many other American college campuses competing against one another in the national competition following the initial on campus screening.
Sixty different competing schools from California, New York, North Carolina, Florida and Indiana will attend the national competition where all the top short films will compete for a grand prize.
“It’s like a campus versus campus competition,” stated Burkholder.
While it is a renewed interest for CPP, students have been reacting to the extracurricular competition with a new attitude that hasn’t been seen for the past three years since the competition’s absence from the campus.
“Here is a really excellent opportunity because they provide all the equipment and all the programs you need [as well as] the technical support and the creative community that helps you realize your ideas for your film,” said Olmstead.
According to Castro, the responses to the competition and the CMF have been generally favorable with most student groups that have come into contact with them throughout the weeks of their involvement. These reactions have brought a certain hope to the possibility of a new annual tradition for CPP students.
With CPP student film screenings around the corner, ASI prepares to send some of the lucky winners of the initial screening to go to CMF nationals in Atlanta to face off against various other top campus films that may lead to further success.
“I really hope that it continues for the next few years, but it really is based off students’ interest,” said Castro.
Courtesy of Campus MovieFest
Campus MovieFest
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