Erika Purdy
Contributing Writer
This Saturday, April 6, The Goliard — Wooster’s student-run literary magazine — will hold its second annual Student Film Festival. The event will take place in The Alley from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
The first film festival was held two years ago in 2017, and was conceived as a way for students whose film work was untranslatable to the written page to express their creativity. While plans for a sophomore effort last year fell through due to lack of interest and submissions, Film Branch Editor Cassidy Ktsanes ’19 is hopeful that the tradition will continue.
“We’re really excited,” she said. “It doesn’t matter the content or the length, we just want to showcase student work.”
While submissions have been checked for offensive content, the goal of the festival is to present a smorgasbord of genres, lengths and styles. Genres vary from comedy to drama to satire and cover a wide range of lengths. The shortest films clock in at around one to two minutes, while the longest is around 10 minutes. In total, the film runtime is expected to be roughly half an hour, with the rest of the festival devoted to casual discussion between directors, actors and attendees.
Among the films presented are “The Pretenderghast” by Sophia Giordano-Scott ’19, Lexi Kangas ’19, Will Strohmeyer ’19 and Emily Anderson ’19 (a film which first debuted in Professor Tom Prendergast’s noir class this past fall), “Memory Landscape” by Juliana Davis ’19, “Herbes Mauvais” by Jack Felch ’20, “Walt Swan” by Teagan Robinson ’19, “A Sticky Situation” by Sabrina Helck ’22 and an as-yet untitled film by Mariam Zghuladze ’22.
The festival in 2017 ranked the films shown, a decision that The Goliard staff have chosen to forgo this year in hopes of making the festival less high pressure. “You don’t have to know a lot about film to submit a film or come see the Film Festival,” said Ktsanes. In an age where nearly every phone has a camera and movies are no longer restricted solely to cinemas or even DVD releases, film as an art form is becoming more accessible to both consumers and producers. The film festival hopes to reflect that expansive passion.
Among the aims of the event is to fill a gap in The Goliard’s coverage of student art. While the publication is ostensibly a literary magazine, the staff seeks to expand their reach to non-written artwork in response to demand from the student body, particularly from new first years who have an interest in film. The Goliard’s music branch already holds events where students cover songs or perform their own. With the film festival, The Goliard hopes to cater to a larger audience.
Ktsanes also hopes that the festival will serve as an encouragement for students to contribute to The Goliard, whether through film or a different medium. Submissions for this year’s publication closed in mid-February, but students can submit their work for next year by emailing the staff at goliard@wooster.edu or getting in contact directly through events such as the festival. This year’s issue will be published in mid-April.