Here’s what it’s like to be part of pro­gram­ming a film festival

It seemed to be per­ma­nent­ly dark in the week between Christ­mas and New Year’s. Even at 3pm, when a new batch of films would arrive on the Face­book mes­sage board, lamps would be on and cur­tains closed. The day was already over. Yet here wait­ed anoth­er four hours of short films ready to be scru­ti­nised and ranked. I’ve often had argu­ments with my friends as to whether you should rate films on a 5‑star scale or out of 10. Should I use dec­i­mal points? Am I rat­ing for artistry or enjoy­ment? Is a numer­i­cal val­ue ever enough to describe an entire film or even a short one?

In watch­ing the stu­dent films that had been sub­mit­ted in this year’s Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Stu­dent Film Fes­ti­val I was struck with sim­i­lar ques­tions: is it fair to rate a stu­dent film poor­ly know­ing it was like­ly made on a minus­cule bud­get? How do I adjust my rat­ing sys­tem to fit low-bud­get shorts instead of big-bud­get features? 

Like most peo­ple who spend time assess­ing films, I some­times for­get even with tal­ent, cre­ativ­i­ty and com­mit­ment, man­ag­ing to get any film off the ground is mirac­u­lous. But my job along with the rest of the sub­mis­sions team was to pit the films against each oth­er and decide which would be wor­thy of show­ing at the festival.

Most peo­ple con­sume films for enter­tain­ment – even a self-con­fessed cinephile or Let­ter­boxd war­rior (myself includ­ed) wouldn’t be so invest­ed if not for the joy that film brings to their lives. Hav­ing a pur­pose behind watch­ing films changes this. Every sub­mis­sion, from the sto­ries of war, stop-motion ani­ma­tions and com­e­dy sketch­es, deserved to be seen, and judg­ing a short turned out to be vast­ly dif­fer­ent from judg­ing a feature. 

The com­plex plots seemed to flop and the sin­gle-scene char­ac­ter stud­ies shone. I want­ed some­thing that leant into the time con­straints, that took its mod­est bud­get and lack of equip­ment in its stride. Many focused heav­i­ly on the expe­ri­ence of stu­dent life, but it was the bol­shy sto­ries and authen­tic docs that proved the most exciting.

Stu­dents from across the coun­try bet on me as their audi­ence, hop­ing that I would enjoy the sto­ries they want­ed to tell, or could see the artistry with­in them. Stu­dents from as far afield as the Tisch School in New York City hoped that their fel­low film-lov­ing stu­dents would give their hours of work time on the big screen. Yet watch­ing these films alone in a dark and dank office at the end of the day, at the end of the year, I was struck by an odd feel­ing as though I would be one of the only peo­ple to watch some of these films, pro­duced in the age of nev­erend­ing content.

Now it feels as though any­one, any­where can be a film­mak­er and share what they’ve made with an ever-expand­ing audi­ence. Film fes­ti­vals, espe­cial­ly those focused on inde­pen­dent short films and stu­dent-organ­ised events, pro­vide a way for the right films to reach the right audi­ence. I like to think that by con­tin­u­ing to screen inde­pen­dent stu­dent films, we are giv­ing the film­mak­ers of the future a chance to cre­ate with­out the new bur­dens of algo­rithms and engage­ment that come with releas­ing a film direct­ly onto the internet.

In the O’Reilly the­atre at Keble Col­lege, the film­mak­ers could see how their work sat with an audi­ence, most­ly made up of stu­dents like them­selves. The anx­i­ety I felt as to whether my opin­ions and choic­es were cor­rect felt unim­por­tant in com­par­i­son to the anx­i­ety felt by those putting their work out there for the first time. Talk­ing to some of the film­mak­ers after the fes­ti­val, it was reward­ing to hear the ways in which they were excit­ed to be screen­ing their films. Joshua Luther Reci­do, win­ner of both the People’s Choice Award and Best Doc­u­men­tary for his short Bei­jing Pigeons, recalled the sense of relief in feel­ing as though his work found its audi­ence and how it was ​“greet­ed with joy­ful laugh­ter in the right places” by those who came along.

Ari­ana Pethard, whose music for the film Win­dows won best score, talked of how excit­ing it was to see the film come togeth­er and to hear the role her music played in it. From appre­hen­sion to excite­ment, it seemed as though to the film­mak­ers, their crews and their audi­ences, being able to enjoy each other’s art and cel­e­brate togeth­er was a huge part of what the fes­ti­val was about. All of those I talked to high­light­ed their love of the expe­ri­ence of being a part of a stu­dent pro­duc­tion, and the impor­tance of stu­dent film in the indus­try, a mes­sage I for sure was glad that came across.

Yet I was still plagued with some self-doubt about my role. These films had been sent to me because some­one trust­ed in my opin­ion, but why? What makes any­one qual­i­fied to chal­lenge or judge an artist’s vision? I have pro­gram­ming expe­ri­ence and I prob­a­bly watch more films, on aver­age, than most of my peers, but I’m not a film­mak­er. I don’t tru­ly under­stand the craft or the process. All I see is the neat and tidy fin­ished prod­uct. There lingers a feel­ing of guilt even after the fes­ti­val; while the films cho­sen helped com­mu­ni­cate the belief that I and the sub­mis­sions team in stu­dent film, there remained a num­ber of films that only a hand­ful of us would ever see.

I kept the sub­mit­ted films in a fold­er on my lap­top hard dri­ve, hoard­ed away – I hat­ed the idea that I wouldn’t be able to watch them again. The fes­ti­val con­clud­ed and the awards were giv­en, bring­ing togeth­er a stu­dent com­mu­ni­ty in the name of art, cre­ativ­i­ty and cin­e­ma, and inevitably new pro­duc­tions will com­mence and new fes­ti­vals will take place, But I don’t think I’ll delete this year’s sub­mis­sions from my com­put­er. Even if they don’t exist in the pub­lic con­scious­ness, or if the far­thest they ever trav­el is to the O’Reilly The­atre in ear­ly Feb­ru­ary of 2024, I take some solace in the fact that I was able to play a part in their sto­ry, no mat­ter how small.