50th Film Festival celebrates student work and collaboration

The Denison Cinema Department will present its 50th Film Festival, at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 9, in Slayter Auditorium. All are welcome to the compilation of cinema students’ work created throughout the semester.

“This serves as the capstone experience for students who are primarily focused on film production,” said Marc Wiskemann, an associate professor and co-chair of the Cinema department. “It is where years of learning, experimentation, and growth come together in a public and celebratory way.”

The films screened in the festival come from Cinema Workshop, an upper level course where each student writes, directs, shoots, and edits their own film over the course of the semester.

“Every week you have a certain homework assignment or something that you should be working on,” said cinema and psychology major Anna Gooch ’26. “You should see progress each week, which has been helpful.”

Given the array of different tasks that go into producing a film, Gooch had been feeling overwhelmed by the number of career opportunities in the film industry. But having a semester to work on one movie has given her the chance to figure out which part of the process she loves the most.

“It’s definitely shown me my strengths, but it’s also shown me my weaknesses,” she said.

Cinema major Jack Zimmermann ’26 said small classes and caring teachers make for a holistic experience.

“At bigger film schools, you’ll usually go in with a focus, like, ‘Oh, I want to be a screenwriter,’ so all you’ll do is writing and maybe some behind the camera — but you won’t touch sound, you won’t do any lighting,” he said.

“Denison teaches students everything because it’s more tight-knit,” he said. Wiskemann said a significant amount of student time goes into preparing the festival itself, which gives students practical collaborative experiences that extend beyond filmmaking.

“They coordinate all aspects of the festival,” he said. “They design the poster and invitations, curate and schedule the films, manage promotion, and work hard to ensure a professional presentation.”

Each student has helped in different ways. They coordinated a photoshoot at a ’50s themed bar for the festival’s poster and put up wanted ads for actors on Facebook.

“I really fell in love with the planning and organizing and production aspects of organizing a film and organizing and collaborating within a group,” Gooch said.

“I think the best takeaway from this class is how close we’ve all gotten,” said Zimmerman. “We really have to do everything together.”

Gooch and Zimmerman were excited to see all of the bits and pieces of the festival come together. The professors are also excited to see the student’s work this year.

The first Denison Film Festival dates back to 1967, when film courses were being offered in the Department of Theatre Arts. Following the creation of the cinema major in 1968, the festival was revamped and eventually became a cherished annual event.