FilmFest returned to the Paramount Theatre April 19 to celebrate its 20th year promoting student filmmaking.

This was a record year for FilmFest with 40 submitted scripts and 27 submitted films leading to the Gala premiere of 16 narrative, documentary and animated films. During the evening, students received awards for excellence in filmmaking in 15 categories including acting, directing and other technical honors. 

Senior physics major Kaden Vasquez led a team that included math, multimedia and digital entertainment majors to take home five awards including Best Picture for their film Brock. This was the third film for Vasquez and co-writer Jonah Norcross including last year’s Cookie Logic that has since appeared in six regional film festivals, winning Best Student Short at the Red Dirt Festival in Beaumont, Texas. 

For the first time this year, an award was given for Best Animated Film, a result of strong submissions in 2D, 3D, stop-motion and experimental animation. The award went to Mug and represented the work of 17 students who spent months on every aspect of the film from storyboarding and concept art to virtual set design and character modeling. 

Seniors Colleen Gostomski, digital entertainment technology major, and Jared Wright, computer science major, co-directed the film they began planning immediately after FilmFest last year.

Gostomski remembers, “It was a tremendous amount of work and a large crew that had to work closely with each other for a full year. I’m so proud of how everyone came together. I know we asked for a lot, but I was confident they could deliver, and they exceeded my expectations.”

This year also included non-fiction films with Generations of Healing taking Best Documentary. The film was one of two co-directed by seniors Ashlee Reed, communication major and Connor Mullins, December journalism graduate, and follows the experience of generations of Comanche children at the Fort Sill Indian Boarding School in Lawton, Oklahoma. 

Returning judges included Sommerly Simser (’09) in film production finance at Netflix, Brent McCorkle with recent credits on Jesus Revolution and Unsung Hero, and Randy Brewer (’93) formerly at Revolution Pictures and now chief storyteller at ACU.

“My experience in Filmfest as a student is one of my favorite memories from ACU,” Simser said. “I learned so much about how to overcome production hurdles when you have a small team and limited budget and still tell a compelling story. Filmfest is a great crash course in filmmaking for ACU students.” 

The evening also included a look back at the early years of FilmFest.

Doug Darby, who teaches in the school of business at Lubbock Christian University, worked at ACU in 2004 and led a group of students including Matt Maxwell (’07) to develop the university’s first FilmFest.

Maxwell is now a filmmaker in residence in the Learning Studio and honored Darby and Tom Craig (’89) for seeing FilmFest through its first 14 years.

Maxwell also honored Vonn Miller who was and is the campus Apple representative for providing the on-campus computers and cameras in the early years that made a digital film festival possible. 

For all that has changed in 20 years of FilmFest, the excitement of students gathering to see their films at the Paramount remains the same. For Gostomski and her team, it was a place to celebrate their work: “Seeing Mug on screen and hearing the audience’s reaction made it all worth it. I was one of our main editors and after watching a film 20 to 30 times while editing, you start to lose your sense of what is good. Watching it at the Paramount let me see it with new eyes and actually find joy in what we made again.”

Visit acu.edu/filmfest to learn more.

–Kyle Dickson

May 1, 2024