After selling out of tickets last year, the Biola Film Festival producers hope to reach more students by hosting the event in Mayers Auditorium for the first time, rather than in the Production Center, on May 6.

celebration of art and a celebration of film

The festival producers plan to screen the 36 nominated films followed by a mixer and an awards show where students can network for life after Biola. They remain excited about the 71 submissions this year in comparison to 36 last year.  

“Because we had so many submissions it allowed our team to nominate more films, which in turn includes more people,” said Sophia Nordell, co-producer of the festival and junior cinema and media arts major. “So we have people that are music composition majors, we have people that… aren’t even in the film department that are nominated for films and that’s really exciting because it makes it more of a celebration of art and a celebration of film as opposed to a celebration of the specific department.”

They hope to also make it a celebration of art by showcasing alumni short films after the student screenings. The selected submissions in 18 categories including best picture, best director, best experimental and best music video will receive awards to end the day.

With the awards show in Mayers Auditorium, the crowd size can be twice the amount of Studio A in the Production Center, according to Nordell. Host of the event and senior broadcast journalism major Josh Klaasen believes the larger crowd size will make the event more fun and hopefully entertain the audience.

the prestigious feel

“I’m looking forward to entertaining the audience and making some people really happy and some other people maybe a little bit uncomfortable… because if you can make people uncomfortable they kind of get addicted to that feeling and they want to come back for more and if people don’t like parts of it, it makes the good parts even better for them,” Klaasen said.

Co-producer of the festival and senior cinema and media arts major Andrew Corl also remains excited for the festival’s location change to have a more professional festival style.

“Bringing it into Mayers also kind of gives us an actual theater setting. Most festivals the awards ceremonies are done in theaters and so we were hosting it in Studio A over in the Production Center, which was working all right, but the problem with that is we’d have to set up all the chairs and it really wasn’t a theater-type setting,” Corl said. “So it kind of gives the event the prestigious feel… it actually does deserve.”

The mixer and awards show start at 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. respectively, with a ticket cost of $5. The student and alumni screenings are free to attend, starting at 1 p.m. and 4:15 p.m.