Students prepare for Gateway Film Festival

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This October Pacific University’s media arts students will host the first ever Gateway Film Festival.

Media Arts Professors Enie Vaisburd and Jennifer Hardacker designed a class together this semester for students to plan, market and fundraise for the event. According to Hardacker, young people from all over the world have submitted their short films online to have a chance to be shown during the festival.

“We really wanted the filmmakers to be high school or college students, because we wanted to represent youth and future filmmakers,” senior Leandra Benson White said. “We wanted to give them a leg up, because if they’ve been in a festival then that’s really big for them.”

The festival begins the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 12 in Marsh Hall, with check-ins and an introduction to the judges. A screening of alumna Melissa Lowery’s film “Black Girl in Suburbia” will be shown, followed by an evening reception.

The following day will include three blocks of films.

“The two short daytime blocks will be an hour in the morning and hour in the afternoon, and those will be combinations of films that have similar themes,” Benson White said. “And then the late-night shorts are the raunchier ones, like the ones about sex and the ones with a lot of blood that have more mature themes.”

The two first short blocks will be shown at the Forest Theater. And the late-night shorts will be shown at Taylor Auditorium in Marsh Hall 216.

The short films being shown range from five to 15 minutes in length, and include a variety of genres, like documentaries, experimental films and even animated shorts.

In addition to the movie showings, the festival will feature a camera workshop and panel of local filmmakers discussing a variety of topics.

“We really want to reach out to the community, but we would also really like students to come,” Benson White said. “even if they’re not from Pacific.”

Students from any school can get into the event for free with their student ID card. For public entry, a five dollar donation is suggested.

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