PRINTFresh fest for film freaks
Student filmmakers light up the Silverscreen
April 3, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Sharif El Neklawy, a junior at MU, has thought about transferring to a new school each year he has been in Columbia. Why? The university does not have a major in film production. “I came here for journalism because journalism’s a good degree,” El Neklawy says. “(I was) trying to make my parents happy, but film has been my passion since eighth grade.”
Although MU offers relatively little in the way of filmmaking education, its Department of Student Activities is providing El Neklawy and other like-minded students a creative outlet in the form of the Silverscreen Festival, a film festival that gives MU and Stephens College students the chance to showcase their short films at free screenings on April 11 and 12 at Jesse Wrench Auditorium.
“There is a wealth of student filmmaking talent here in Columbia,” says Silverscreen founder and MU senior Jay Johnson. “I believe that this film festival will give young, aspiring filmmakers the opportunity with which to start their careers.”
Johnson says it began with the idea of an event where students would be in charge of the film content. He hatched the idea after realizing it could be an alternative to scattershot online videos. “I figured so many kids are glued to YouTube and Google videos,” Johnson says, “and they’re making and submitting their own. I wanted to expand on that idea and highlight quality short films.”
Johnson intends to promote quality and spur enthusiasm by having a television producer present at Silverscreen. R.J. Visciglia, whose credits include the shows My Boys and Touched by an Angel, will provide feedback to the event’s participants.
The student association borrowed numerous cameras and microphones from MUTV and local film gurus and issued the items to Silverscreen filmmakers. “It’s just trying to encourage full participation by all students who are interested in making films,” Johnson says.
El Neklawy is excited to submit his film to the festival and hopes others will share his view. “There are probably other people like me that were just waiting for something like this to come up and hit them in the face and actually get to be a part of it,” he says.
El Neklawy’s enthusiasm for the festival is understandable because MU offers fewer movie-making opportunities than Stephens, which offers a digital filmmaking major. Despite boasting occasional screenwriting and production classes and a film studies minor, MU has been slow to adopt a film studies major over the past three years, the time during which it has been considered.
Film studies instructor Ramsay Wise says that MU has been supportive of the film studies major, but to his knowledge, funding was the reason for the holdup. “I don’t think the delay has been academic or intellectual or anything,” he says. “It’s just about the cost.”
Roger Cook, the chair of the film studies program, expects a film studies major to officially be offered during the 2008-2009 academic year, though he does not foresee a film production major being made available.
Johnson hopes Silverscreen will get more people excited about the possible new major and get the creative juices of young writers and directors flowing. He says this festival and the classes that are already offered are enough proof to show that MU has the capabilities to be a quality school for teaching film.
Although the festival will not necessarily change the trajectory of MU’s academics or draw as many attendees as the True/False Film Festival, the Department of Student Activities has high hopes for Silverscreen. Festival organizer Elizabeth Boerner says she hopes the event will become an annual staple and that it will expand. “We don’t want it to just be a Mizzou thing,” Boerner says. “We’re ultimately hoping to make it a Columbia-Midwest thing.”
