The University of Vermont's Independent Voice Since 1883

The Vermont Cynic

The University of Vermont's Independent Voice Since 1883

The Vermont Cynic

The University of Vermont's Independent Voice Since 1883

The Vermont Cynic

UVM’s first student film festival comes to the silver screen

UVM will be holding its first student film festival this Thursday, April. It will take place from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. in the Davis Center’s Grand Maple Ballroom. The films range in length from 40 seconds to 22 minutes. In total, there will be about 2 hours worth of film foot?age with an intermission. Before the film showing, during the intermission and during the judge’s deliberation the student band Tequila Mockingbird will be performing. The festival will be a contest. A collection of film professors as well as SGA’s vice-president, DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan, will make up the judge’s panel. They will be judging each short film based on the quality of editing, the story line and the overall entertainment value. Local businesses such as The Bern Gallery, Small Dog Electronics and Magnolia will be sponsoring the event. The first place winner will receive $200 from The Bern Gallery as well as a $75 gift certificate to Small Dog. The second place winner will receive $50 from The Bern Gallery. The third winner will be chosen by the audience and will receive a $25 gift certificate to The Bern Gallery and $25 gift certificate to Fitid hat shop on Main Street. The mastermind behind this event is film and television studies major,Max Tubman. Tubman decided to take on the challenge of single-handedly producing this film festival when he began to notice the growing popularity of the Film and Television Studies department. He noted that within the department, there was a serious lack of emphasis on the production aspect of the field of study. Tubman and many other students within the department had been making films without a place to showcase them. Tubman saw the need and decided to create the space. When asked about the challenges he has faced while assembling a festival from scratch, Tubman first noted that, “Getting people aware of the festival has been a serious challenge.” Secondly, Tubman explained that, “The greatest challenge that I have come across was when in the first week of classes, I got diagnosed with thyroid cancer. There was a giant lump in my throat. All things considered, it is one of the easiest forms of cancer to treat, so it wasn’t life threatening, but it was pretty big and they had to take it out right away. I missed two weeks of school for that. When I got back I had to catch up with all of my schoolwork, and then take care of all of the things that didn’t get done for the film festival. Plus, I had to deal with the stress of recovering from the surgery.” Tubman will not be submitting any films to the festival because he says, “I think that it would be weird if I won my own contest.” However, Tubman has been working with a few other students to create short “bumper” films to thread in between the films that are being considered for the competition. Though Tubman is graduating this spring, he hopes that he has set the precedent for an annual student film festival on campus. Eventually, he would like to see students from other schools competing with UVM students. As of now however, no underclassman has stepped up to take the torch from him.

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UVM’s first student film festival comes to the silver screen