IU will host its fourth annual Montage Film Festival at 7 p.m. on April 28 at IU Cinema. The event will include both a showcase and an award ceremony for student-produced films.
Admission is free for students and tickets are available to reserve prior to the event.
Students interested in participating can submit a short film any time from March 10 to March 20. A select number of projects will be accepted and screened at the event. A panel of judges, including alumni and film professionals, will award the films for best score/composition, best cinematography, best editing and other categories found on IU’s Cinema Academy website.
The films are primarily produced and directed by Media School students, but the faculty and students planning the event are trying to increase participation from other departments this year.
“It’s open to all students — not just in the Media School,” Bear Brown, the faculty advisor for Montage, said. “You don’t need fancy equipment now to make a movie; I’ve seen stuff shot with mobile devices that I think are really good.”
Related: [COLUMN: Pierce the Veil underwhelms with its new album ‘The Jaws Of Life’]
Brown said the festival is a great opportunity for students to create something.
“Everybody can draw or write because we all have pencils,” Brown said. “That doesn’t mean we all do it well, but we all have the opportunity.”
Both students and faculty have praised Montage’s ability to provide real-world experience for people looking for a career in the film industry.
“There are critical skills for filmmakers when they go out into the world,” Alicia Kozma, the director of IU Cinema, said. “Montage is a little capsule of all of those things together to help prepare them and give them experience in an environment that’s okay for them to mess up, so that when they’re out in the world, they can fix it.”
Vlada Lodesk, a graduate student from Russia, is one of two students taking the lead to produce the event this year. In Russia, Lodesk said she helped produce many international film festivals, but this is her first time working with student films.
“Besides Student Cinema Guild, there’s not much of a community for the filmmaking process and this festival gives that,” Lodesk said. “It’s something for people to look forward to. We want people to see this as an event they don’t want to miss.”
Related: [COLUMN: Fruit tastes better when my mom cuts it for me]
Josh Vanover, the other primary student producer, said it’s his second year helping with the project. He said he and Lodesk recognize the impact this festival has both for the community and as a tool to step into the professional world of filmmaking.
“The goal is to celebrate and showcase student films that maybe wouldn’t have been shown outside of a classroom,” Vanover said. “So many people make things all the time for their classes, but they might not have the avenue or budget or scale of it to send it to festivals, so Montage really helps if you want to have your work seen by 100-200 people.”
Duke Moosbrugger, an IU senior, is entering his short film into the festival for the first time. His film, “Eldritch,” is a 10-minute long psychological-thriller about a paranormal investigator exploring a haunted house. He said he is excited to see his film on the big screen and share the moment with fellow filmmakers.
Montage provides a community for filmmakers at IU, along with many opportunities for their work to be seen by students and professionals in the industry.
“We’ll all get to sit down together and watch our hard work pay off,” Moosbrugger said.
