Small films, big dreams

This Friday, Portland State’s 5th Avenue Cinema is holding its 10th annual Visuals Film Festival, in which university and community filmmakers showcase their work for the public.

“It’s important for us to support local filmmakers, because people have to start from somewhere—it is an important springboard,” said 5th Avenue Cinema Promotions Director Heather Petrocelli. “I feel strongly for the filmmakers that this festival exists, because it’s important for filmmakers to have exhibition spaces.”

Of the approximately 20 films submitted for this year’s festival, 13 will be shown, four of which are the work of PSU students.

For the contest, participants submitted entries under 15 minutes long in either an online or DVD format. The committee from the cinema then watched, reviewed and re-watched all of the films, then picked the ones with the highest levels of quality that best fit the viewing schedule.

This is the first year the committee reviewed online submissions.

“The most interesting thing I noted was that people wanted to submit their submission online,” Petrocelli said. “Normally, we usually say, ‘Give us a hard copy,’ but we learned that things were changing quickly, and the vast majority of our submissions came from the Internet this year.”

Jason Ross, projectionist for the cinema, said that the decision to accept online submissions helped greatly during the selection process.

“It’s made it a lot easier for both sides, because, with everybody’s busy schedules, it’s really hard to have physical meet ups,” Ross said. “This way, we could each watch the submissions without having to hand DVDs back and forth, and you can rate them online, making the process a lot smoother and more efficient.”

Anyone who attends the event will have a chance to watch all of the films, vote on their favorites, and enjoy free Hot Lips pizza afterward. The committee will then tally the votes, from which two winners will be chosen.

Film senior Madison Beaudet submitted his short film titled Real Friends Have Tin Foil. The film tells the story of an encounter between friends while freebasing heroin. Beaudet wanted to put his work on public display and believes the Visuals Film Festival is a promising place to start.

“It’s good to support people who are trying to get started in making films around Portland, because it’s becoming a really prominent thing in the city. People are aware of where the Portland film scene is going and who is trying to get involved in it,” he said. “I’ll also be able to meet people who are making work and be able to collaborate with them.”

Although the film festival will take place within the confines of 5th Avenue Cinema, foundations, connections and tools that community members and filmmakers will be presented with will reach far beyond its walls.

Portlanders will have the opportunity to see what talented local artists in the PSU and the greater Portland community are doing in the independent film domain, Ross said.