Fault Line Film Fest to showcase students' efforts

The Southeast Missouri State University fifth annual Fault Line Film Festival will take place from Wednesday through Nov. 21.

The idea of creating a film festival at Southeast came from mass media professors Jim Dufek and Fred Jones from of a desire to showcase students' work in the community.

"We wanted to have an outlet other that social media or a classroom presentation to show the students' work to the community," Dufek said. "We wanted to have a film festival that was made just for students."

In the past, the competition was open only to college students from throughout Missouri. It now is including entries from students in bordering states.

"It's been quite successful. We've had a wide range of faculty and students who want to be part of the festival," Dufek said.

This year's award ceremony Wednesday will feature guest speaker Sam Park, a Southeast alumnus who is West Coast editor and part-time owner of a transmedia company, Monsterverse Entertainment, and a new horror media company, Scratch Lighting Productions.

Dufek said guests who have attended past film festivals have been impressed by the enthusiasm from the students.

"Giving them this stage to promote their skills, I think, just enhances their awareness of how important this really is," Dufek said.

The awards ceremony will take place in the Bedell Performance Hall at the River Campus.

On Nov. 21, a gala event in Rose Theatre will showcase the winning films.

Each film is entered into one of five categories: animation, comedy, drama, mystery/suspense and other, which is for films that do not fall into one of the other categories. An award for best film is given within each category, as well as awards for Best Invitational Film (the best film from a student not attending Southeast) and the Best of Festival. In addition, an award is given to a film that showcases outstanding technical achievement, and another is given to a film that the audience deems worthy.

"We have a fun event that night where the audience gets to pick the Audience Choice Award," Dufek said.

He added the event is the opportunity for the community to see the students' productions and to discuss their works with them.

Last year, Noah Canavan submitted two films to the festival. He won an honorable mention for "A Mess," while "Putting Out The Fire With Gasoline" took best of the festival. Canavan is from Quincy, Illinois, and completed his undergraduate studies at Southeast. He is pursuing a master's degree in fine arts at Boston's Emerson College. To him, his experience with the film festival played a big part in shaping his filmmaking career.

"All schools want to see a few subjects of work you have made, and, then, if they are award winning subjects, all the better," Canavan said. "Fault Line also made me a lot closer to some actors who will be a big part of my future works, so I not only gained experience, I gained a strong network."

Canavan entered a film in the competition every year while he was at Southeast, and he said it helped him gain experience and have fun, as Fault Line was not part of a class project or mandatory.

After entering in Fault Line Film Festival, he said Southeast professor Jones encouraged him to enter "Putting Out The Fire With Gasoline" into the Missouri Broadcast Educators Association's film awards.

"It went on to take first place in the short-film category, which with Fault-Line, I really think put me into the grad school that I am in," Canavan said.