Offering students a chance to escape the stress of finals and enjoy the magic of the movies, the 7th annual Tri-Co Film Festival will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 10th. The Film Festival’s location circulates around the tri-co, but this year it will be held at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute.
The 2018 Film Festival will again be directed by Haverford alumnus, Harlow Figa ‘16. Figa first became involved with the Tri-Co Film Festival as a participant, when two of their films screened at the 4th and 5th annual Tri-Co Film Festivals. Figa would go on to deepen their connection to the film world after graduation, taking part in a Haverford summer documentary lab and attending the Flaherty Seminar through the Hurford Seminar. With so much film experience, Figa was a prime candidate for director in both 2017 and 2018.
“After enjoying the process of pulling the fest together and combing through student films when directing last year, I was excited to have the opportunity to do it all again this year,” Figa said.
The Film Festival will be kicked off by a reception with food and drink at 6:30 p.m., before the 90-minute film program screening begins at 7:00 p.m. The film program will be comprised of about fifteen student-produced short films, that vary in both genres and aesthetic, in an effort to highlight the diversity of media production within the Tri-Co. This year, the festival expanded its entry guidelines to accept new media submissions, so the 2018 Film Festival will also include a few multimedia projects. Two of these new, multimedia projects use augmented reality headsets to allow viewers to be fully immersed.
“This will be the first year that multimedia projects will be featured on the evening of the festival, so I’m most excited to see how the audience engages with these new media pieces and artists, and for folks to draw connections between the film program and the new media projects,” Figa said. “We’re planning on having two Augmented Reality (AR) projects for audience members to interact with at the fest, which I’m imagining will be new and exciting for attendees.”
This year’s Tri-Co Film Festival was curated by Shari Frilot and Sosena Solomon. Frilot’s expertise as the Chief Curator at Sundance’s New Frontier Program was especially helpful as the festival introduced the New Media initiative this year. Solomon is also an extremely valuable member of the team, who works as a documentarian and visual artist from Ethiopia, teaches at Temple University and engages in several Philadelphia art and film hubs.
After the screening program, there will be an awards ceremony from 8:30 to 9:00, followed by a celebration with more food and drink, during which attendees can interact with the new media projects.
“I’m really looking forward to highlighting and celebrating the remarkable work coming from Tri-Co student—I intend for the reception and celebration to be a celebratory space where students, professors, and staff can take a breath during the busy finals time to appreciate the variety and quality of work made this year. Also, the Bryn Mawr Film Institute is a beautiful, historic theater, and it’s always a treat to see powerful work up on their big screen,” Figa said.
The Film Festival, which is free of charge, will have buses taking students from both Haverford and Swarthmore to make the event more accessible to students from the entire Tri-Co. Buses leave Haverford from Stokes at 5:50 and 6:25 and return at 9:20 and 10:10.
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