by Molly Vincent |
The annual Kate Regan Film Festival kicked off Thursday night with host and Christie Hall Director Joe Burke discussing the late Regan’s dedication to students and compassion for the University of Portland.
Regan was a Spanish professor and film creator who coordinated the CISGO Digi-Shorts Digital Storytelling Festival in spring 2014, but after her death that summer, the event’s name was changed to honor her.
This year, the film festival received 30 submissions from students competing in various categories: narrative, documentary, humor, animation and international films.
Senior Jason Smith, a physics and philosophy major, wanted to capture motion in his animated short “Elements of Simplicity,” which won Smith a $200 prize for both Best Animation and Best in Show.
The film celebrates motion by focusing on dance.
“Animation is truly a profound and beautiful human endeavor,” Smith said.
Smith worked on the film over the course of a year, spending a total of nearly 400 hours on it.
Category winners included Kyle Sovada for his rock climbing documentary “Cold and Windy Climbing,” Devin Ajimine for his Californian documentary “A Trip to the Golden State California,” John Fisher for his humor film, “Rate My Professor,” and Sanna Mustonen for the international film “Run.” All winners were awarded $100 each.
Ajimine used his spring break trip to California as an impromptu opportunity to film the sunny sights of beaches and skyscrapers of Southern California, a process that took him five days to film.
Fisher interviewed various professors on their “Rate My Professor” reviews, some of whom were rather disappointed with not getting a chili pepper, signifying a “hot” teacher.
He also won the Brian Doyle Humor Scholarship with his short film and felt it could fit into the humor category quite nicely.
“I thought I might submit it to as many things as possible,” Fisher said.
“Rate My Professor” was a hit with audiences as well.
“Great concept,” senior Todd Graham said. “It really tied in the University of Portland community.”
University of Portland’s “Portland Magazine” editor Brian Doyle reiterated to the audience how necessary storytelling is to humans.
“All of life is a story,” Doyle said. “(Stories) shape us in all different ways.”
Molly Vincent is a news reporter for The Beacon. She can be reached at vincentm17@up.edu.
