Ryan Loredo
A&E Editor
Student film festivals serve as a gateway for young college filmmakers to display their work to friends, family, professors, and people interested of the future world of filmmaking.
Keene State College hosted the KSC Student Film Festival in the Mabel Brown Room on Saturday, April 30.
As a free event, the show was meant to display the works of some of the most imaginative and creative film student KSC has to offer.
The program of event was divided into two different programs for the entire event, divided by an hour-long intermission.
The first part was the student film shorts, which comprised of 14 short films ranging from three to nineteen minutes in length.
The first film was “In Reply,” by KSC junior Caitlen Brown.
The film displayed a young woman going through her dreams of the wilderness while wearing a dress with an umbrella.
She then meets a man in a cat mask and they dance until she wakes up on her desk, ready to take on the day as a new person.
The second film was “Quintessence of Innocence” by Sarah Macdonald.
The film was about a coming-of-age girl in the mid-1800s going through the constant urgings of her mother to become a proper woman while she wants to be a free spirit.
Throughout the film she dances with her friend and explores her world while her mother is at home waiting for her with her father.
In the end, she ends up running away from an act that destroys her innocence for the rest of her life.
“Spring” by KSC senior Taylor McIntosh served as the third film in the set.
The film was about a day in the life of a maple sugar farmer and how he does his job as he begins to make maple syrup.
“All I Have to Say” by KSC film student Andrew Frisiello was the fourth film of the festival.
The film was about a man who had a stuttering condition which, he said, hindered his ability to function in our society and showed examples in various life experiences.
“Duality,” by KSC film student Megan Dichtl was a more abstract film in the set.
It featured shots of New York City and the known sights with other shots of the countryside near the beach.
“Associational Cues” was the sixth film in the set directed by Jamie Del Pizzo.
The film displayed another day in the life scenario.
The film was about living through the sights and muffled sounds of a deaf person as she wakes up, goes to the mall, and goes snowboarding.
“Frankly I Don’t Know Jack,” by Kristen Greco, was a comedy featuring two “warring” neighbors using classic comedy techniques as tactics.
In the end, the two men settled their differences with a cup of tea.
After a brief intermission came the eighth film, “Mitternacht,” by KSC film student John Fitzgerald.
The film was a black and white silent film about a painter looking for his ink in order to make shadows for his painting of a town.
The ninth film of the festival was the shortest of the short films featured, “September 6,” by film student Sara Warton.
It was a shocking film in which a girl in the film smoked out of a hookah and was hallucinating about being tortured by masked, tuxedo-wearing people.
The tenth film of the segment was “Nuclear Family” by film student Adam Shaw.
The film is about the life of a family during the 1950s when a nuclear bomb explodes in suburbia.
The film has cuts of old television shows such as “Leave it to Beaver.”
“Two Little Letters,” by film student senior Annie Sakellar, was the eleventh film for the night.
The film was a documentary about her struggle with cystic fibrosis, which she has dealt with since she was a child.
“Fire House,” by KSC film student Jimmy Cahan, was another documentary and was the twelfth film in the festival.
The film displayed scenes of fire containment people inside of a burning house set to music.
“Small Change,” by KSC film student Grant Savastano, followed the previous film and was the thirteenth film in the segment.
The film followed the trail of a penny and the effect it had on a series of people who came across it.
The final film of the first segment was “Real Bill” by KSC film student Ryan Hartmann.
The film followed the life of a man named Bill who leads an interesting life of world record breaking and competition.
Following the intermission came three films as part of the Senior Film Projects. Each film was done with a team of seniors.
One team made two films and one group made one film reaching over a half hour.
The first film screened was “The Thaw,” made by the first group of seniors.
The film was divided into seven acts about a series of people in a frozen land.
The film showed scenes of people struggling to survive and the decay of humanity with the beginnings of burning of a woman at the stake.
When asked why the group showed the scene one spokesperson, Ryan Hartman, for the group said, “I think the original concept for that whole (scene) was sort of like revolutionary war era and then it quickly formed into something completely different. I wanted to do something like a witch burning for my segment. I think it has it’s own undertones to it and I really liked the visual idea of it.”
The second film in the segment was made by the same group as before.
“Some Here. Some There” followed the life of a boy and the impact his grandmother had on him and his sister.
The film depicted scenes of joy and imitated an idealized childhood.
The final film of the festival was made by the second group of seniors and was the longest film of the entire festival running for over thirty minutes.
“Elysian Fields” was a WWII war film that strayed from the norms of current WWII films.
The film followed a group of WWII soldiers through a snow-ridden forest.
The film was filled with accurate WWII props and featured German dialogue.
According to the group, it was a struggle to film during the winter.
When asked how directing the film was KSC senior film student Russel Stephen, who directed the film, said, “It was the most challenging thing and stressful thing I have ever done in my life.”
Stephen also said, “As far as projects are concerned, I’m never going to make another war film, that’s for sure.”
All of the films for the entire festival received justified applause and compliments from audience members.
KSC alumna Laura Hopkins said they, “Were really interesting and diverse films, there was a little bit for every kind of film goer.”
Ryan Loredo can be contacted at rloredo@keeneequinox.com
