The two-day event will showcase student and alumni films and offer attendees a range of exciting workshops, screenings, and panels with special guests
Announcement
Los Angeles, CA —
Emerson College Los Angeles’ 14th Annual Film Festival kicks off this year on Friday, October 10, bringing together students, alumni, faculty and the community for two days to celebrate Emerson student films, showcase select alumni and faculty work, and learn from industry leaders.
Each year, the Emerson LA Film Festival highlights the best of Emerson College student films and screens their work in front of film and entertainment industry professionals. Five Emerson student filmmakers were selected from more than 130 submissions for this year’s coveted event. Their films cover a wide range of subjects.
Dramatic shorts Nailed It by Jean-Paul DiSciscio, The Last Dance by Alison Hammersley and Shelby Sims, and Disorder by Cooper Vacheron and Pamela Mora study the nature of interpersonal relationships.Le Blue Stella by Peter Ferris Rosati explores other worlds and state of beings and On Being Sane by Dane Shubert dissects mental illness.
Included in the festival’s lineup for the first time this year will be three films submitted by Emerson graduates. The Emerson Alumni Film competition showcases excellent short films from Julian Higgins (Here and Now), Drew Van Steenbergen and Quinn Marcus (Alone with People) and Adam Lewin (A Better Place Than This). All competition selections were chosen by a jury of distinguished Emerson alumni and faculty.
The Emerson LA Film Festival begins on Friday, October 10, at 7:00 p.m. with the Los Angeles premiere of Give Me the Banjo, a film featuring recent American Film Institute Life Achievement Awardee Steve Martin and directed by Marc Fields, Associate Professor of Visual and Media Arts, followed by a cocktail reception.
Emerson’s student and alumni competition screenings will take place on Saturday, October 11, concluding with the "Best of Festival" Awards Presentation and an evening reception honoring this year’s participants. The festival will also offer attendees an array of exciting workshops, panels, and additional student screenings that highlight the new Emerson College Los Angeles as a creative space. All events are open to the public.
The Festival features an animation session for children lead by Mike Hollingsworth, head animator of Netflix’s new hit series BoJack Horseman, a presentation on filmmaking technology of the future by award-winning editor Jeff Consiglio and Red Digital Cinema, and a talk with Call of Duty: Black Ops author and Emerson Los Angeles faculty member Micah Wright on blurring the line between films and video games.
This year's screening competitions will be judged by a jury of industry professionals, Emerson faculty, and distinguished alumni. In addition, two other honors will be announced during the awards presentation. The student whose film most powerfully explores a current social issue (cultural, political, or personal) will be awarded, at a later date, the Take Action Hollywood! Award, co-founded by Emerson alumna Maria Menounos '00. The Dr. Marcia Robbins-Wilf Women in Film Production Award will be presented to the Festival's outstanding female filmmaker. To secure tickets in advance, register online. Tickets can also be purchased at the event (cash only). Get the full schedule and watch this year’s selected student film trailers here.
About Emerson College Los Angeles
Emerson College, the world’s premier center for the study and practice of communication and the arts, was the first East Coast college to establish a residential study and internship program in Los Angeles in the 1980s. While Emerson has had a 27-year presence in Los Angeles, the College’s new permanent facility, located on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, represents a significant commitment to the city and the entertainment industry. Designed by internationally renowned architect Thom Mayne of Morphosis Architects, the LEED-certified facility had its grand opening in March 2014. More than 4,300 Emerson students have already participated in internships at renowned film studios, media outlets, marketing agencies and related enterprises in LA, which is also home to more than 4,000 successful Emerson alumni. For more information on Emerson College in Los Angeles, visit www.emerson.edu.
About Emerson College
Based in Boston, Massachusetts, opposite the historic Boston Common and in the heart of the city’s Theatre District, Emerson College educates individuals who will solve problems and change the world through engaged leadership in communication and the arts, a mission informed by liberal learning. The College has 3,780 undergraduates and 670 graduate students from across the United States and 50 countries. Supported by state-of-the-art facilities and a renowned faculty, students participate in more than 90 student organizations and performance groups. Emerson is known for its experiential learning programs in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, the Netherlands, London, China, and the Czech Republic as well as its new Global Portals, with the first opening last fall in Paris. The College has an active network of 51,000 alumni who hold leadership positions in communication and the arts. For more information, visit Emerson.edu.