4Screen Festival Showcases Unique Shorts From Around the Globe

The first ever 4Screen film festival, was held in Hannon Library Thursday evening and showcased interesting films submitted by movie makers from around the world.  Meese room is located on the third floor of the building that was just voted as one of the top libraries in the country and entertained around 50 viewers.

Andrew Gay, who just began teaching at SOU in the fall, directed the festival and had his video production class select the criteria for entrants.  Through Filmfreeway.com the event received over 450 short films from all over the world submitted under the categories of single shot, POV, and silent.

Dale Vidmar, a librarian in Hannon as well as the venue coordinator, attributes the large number of submissions to the the fact that there was no entrance fee.  “The students did a great job of going through all the films and selecting the ones they liked as well as tossing out the ones that didn’t follow the submission guidelines.”

Ranging from nine seconds long to just over three minutes, each film seemed to portray a strong message in a short window of time. Although they could only be submitted under three different categories, the guidelines allowed for an artistic range in diversity, which even included some animated features.

A couple of the films drew sighs of empathy from the audience, while others sent laughter throughout the room. Also adding to the dramatic change in atmosphere was the constant flipping of languages in the films.  While two of the submissions came from right in Oregon, two-thirds of the others were sent from outside of the United States.

“Having films submitted from all over the world was definitely cool,” Lucy Lepkowitz, a SOU Communications major, said.“Every time I see shorts like this it makes me want to get started on my own.”

Vidmar encourages anyone who missed the event or wants to see the features again to check out the Digital Media Gallery, located on the first floor of Hannon Library.  The selected shorts, as well as others that didn’t make the cut, will be shown for about a month, and the environment of four screens being projected simultaneously makes for a unique viewing experience.