The Colorado College Film Union’s annual Film Fest is the best opportunity for student filmmakers to showcase work to a large audience and show peers who couldn’t make film classes’ screenings throughout the year. Unlike previous years, many of this year’s admitted films were made outside of class, meaning it will be the first time many of these films have an audience.
“It’s really good this year,” said senior Film Union President Laila Mahan. “We’ve got a great balance of fiction and documentary projects. One of the best parts of Film Fest is that it gives students who make films outside of class a chance for their peers to see their work.”
The group is comprised of about half documentary and half fiction films, including both actors and subjects within CC and around the Colorado Springs and Denver communities.
The films range from stories of escapist youth and stumbling upon a drug circle, to intimate documentaries, exploring homeless LGBT youth in Colorado Springs and members and the Colorado Springs BDSM community.
“If you’re caught engaging in BDSM activities in Colorado, you can lose your job, your friends, your kids,” said senior Michaela Kobsa-Mark regarding her documentary collaboration with senior Brooks Fleet-McFarlane and junior Cameron Boyd on Your Fetish Isn’t My Fetish.
The most important part of their process included the team’s collaborating with the BDSM community to address potential liabilities, making sure no one of their subjects would be “outed” as “kinky” to friends and family.
“I think my favorite part of the film was having my ideas about BDSM completely changed and feeling comfortable in a community that made me uncomfortable at first,” said Fleet-McFarlane.
In collaboration with a large student crew, even setting up a rave shoot with hay bails in Cornerstone’s studio B, senior Alex Suber’s film, Hitched, follows a city kid’s escape to the countryside and discovery of its “underbelly.”
Shot on location at Chico Basin Ranch, the crew shot most of the film during “golden hour,” the short window after sunrise and before sunset when light appears gold in color. “Our crew of ten woke up at 5 a.m. every morning to catch the first glimpses of light of the prairie horizon,” said Suber. “The most amazing part of the process was [their] dedication… and the good times we had out on the ranch being hooligans once the sun went down.”
“In Chico Basin you’re very far from anything,” said first-year crewmember Georgia Griffis. “We didn’t even have running water, and then all of a sudden we were carrying around big expensive cameras. It was cool to see a film crew become a team and a close community. We definitely bonded a lot over it.”
Make sure to support all of CC’s student filmmakers at Film Fest in Armstrong this Saturday at 7 p.m. Like every year, it’s sure to delight.