There won't be a red carpet or paparazzi snapping photos of famous celebrities, but the love for film and its creation will be all the rage at Thursday's student-run film festival.
FocusFest is a non-competitive annual film festival organized entirely by University of Memphis students. It began 15 years ago and showcases U of M's burgeoning filmmakers, along with its veterans.
Shelby Farrell, communication graduate student and director of FocusFest '11, said FocusFest '11 will display student films varying in subject matter — short documentaries, westerns, student remakes of famous movie scenes and others.
The festival will run Thursday from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at Malco Studio on the Square in Midtown and is free and open to the public. This year's festival includes more than 20 short films, most of which are three to five minutes long.
"I've been really impressed with the quality of films that have come through," she said. "That shows the people in this department really know what they're doing."
David Appleby, communication professor and supervisor of the festival, said students tend to make films for class, and this festival gives them the experience of seeing their films on the big screen.
"It's projected for an audience of their peers and their families," he said. "They get to find out what it feels like to get an audience response, which is what filmmaking is all about — communicating to an audience."
Farrell and the student committee set a deadline for when films would be accepted, then screened the films and selected which ones would be used and in what order they would be presented.
This year will be the first time FocusFest has used Blu-Ray discs, which Farrell said has caused some problems.
"It's been a lot of trial by error," she said.
The festival will be set up in two parts. The first will last 45 minutes. The second will follow a brief intermission and will last an hour.
She said the festival will be "amazing and the best FocusFest ever."
Communication graduate student Eric Huber directed last year's festival and submitted two shorts of his own this year: "Notorious Jesse James," and "Horn Island." He said he spent plenty of sleepless nights organizing last year's show, but in the end, it all came together.
"There was quite a bit of relief," he said. "Everything was done. It just all built up to that point — and then (came) summer."
Appleby said the community has been supportive of the festival, which has received donations from Huey's Restaurant, Malco Theaters, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and others.
"Malco certainly doesn't have to give us a theater every year," he said. "We're very much appreciative."
Appleby said filmmaking is a lifestyle and that a lot of students have their own equipment and work outside the classroom.
"The classes feed filmmaking," he said. "If you're not making films all the time, you're not going to learn how to make films. The best students are the passionate ones who are going to be making films no matter what."
