Calling student short films: submissions due March 26 for festival

Oluwatomike Bali
Staff Writer

Stomper’s Student Shorts are part of an annual student film festival that started in 2012 at MNSU.

The festival originated from the “48-hour film festival” that used to take place in the 1990s and went on for over a decade. The idea was that people were given a certain theme and then had 48 hours to make a movie.

Speaking with the staff advisor of Student Events Team, Bill Tourville, he said that the Stomper Student’s Shorts were created in 2014 by a student named Amanda Anez.

Students are allowed to pick any genre of their choice to create a video from. He also stated that they have had “as high as 12 entries and a low of 6 or 7 entries within the past four years.” Tourville believes that students are pretty responsive to the idea.

The auditions for this year’s film festival are currently ongoing as there has been call for entries for a little over two weeks now.

The deadline for registration and submissions for this year’s film festival is March 26. There is an online application on OrgSync where students can submit their form and a hardcopy, USB or DVD of their film.

“The Student Events Team will work with the Film Studies Department as well as other faculty and students will judge them,” said Tourville.

The festival is on April 4, where all the finalists will be screened and winners will be announced. There are three prize categories: the first and second place and the audience choice awards, where the audience are allowed to vote. The first place wins up to a $200 gift card, where the winner picks what they want, second place is a $50 gift card to Best Buy and the audience choice wins a $25 gift card to Best Buy.

Stomper’s Student Shorts is an opportunity for students to show their film making skills and a chance to be viewed by a larger audience that has grown over the years.