The Athens International Film and Video Festival celebrates its 31st year this week with a seven-day schedule of international movies and six days of competing films featuring filmmakers from all over, including Athens.
Although it is small
it is one of the remaining places where outsiders can get their films shown said competition pre-screener Morgan McCullough about the festival.
Over 350 films were sent to The Athens Center for Film and Video located in the Central Classroom Building where eight pre-screeners, including McCullough, selected 150 for the competition. They range from 40-second pieces to political documentaries.
I like the film festival a lot because it represents a margin of films and filmmakers said Patrick Horne.
Horne, an Ohio University alumnus and Athens resident, entered the festival for a second year.
His film this year is Yoshitomo and Marcel (Pissing on the Past). The film shows the process of OU associate professor of sculpting Yoshitomo Saito as he takes the bottom of a 200-year-old tree on College Green and recreates Marcel Duchamp's Fountain out of wood.
Horne said his film came about two years ago while doing a work-study project for the School of Art. The film is his first documentary, and he said he found Professor Saito's perception of art involving the tree and the history of the sculpture addicting.
Overall
the process in itself of making a film is amazing
said graduate student Jimmy Hall. There are so many steps to complete a film. You always have this idea
but it always ends up differently in the end
he said.
Hall is also a returning competition candidate with his film Live at Six.
It started as how the news is processed
the 'behind the scenes
' said Hall.
Hall's film follows WVAH Fox 11 Eyewitness News at 6 p.m. in Hurricane, W. Va.
Hall said he started filming four days after the war in Iraq started, which was the day after Jessica Lynch, a West Virginia-native, was captured in Iraq.
Hall, who directed, produced, edited and shot the film, followed the news crew as they filmed her family's reaction to her missing.
The films are separated into three categories: narrative, documentary and experimental and then judged by five jurors, said pre-screener Katherine Furler.
Professor Frederick Lewis in the School of Telecommunications is one of the five judges for the competition this year.
As a first-time judge, Lewis said the originality and story are the most important parts of the films.
Quality of the film is the bottom line
said McCullough.
The competition films will be playing Saturday through Thursday at the Athena and Baker University Center.
There will be a winner for each of the three categories, said Furler. These winners will split $7,500 worth of cash, goods and services.
The winners will be announced late Friday afternoon at the Athena, 20 S. Court St.
