On April 26, six films created by undergraduates and performed entirely in Spanish or Portuguese will be aired at the second annual DSP Film Festival. This project was dreamed up by Nate Mehr and Guillermo Martínez-Sotelo, both graduate students in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and they continue to coordinate this project, a true labor of love, with six other committee members. A panel of judges reviews the entries, which are due on April 12 this year, selecting three finalists and three runners-up to participate in the festival. The majority of the judging panelists are Department of Spanish and Portuguese faculty.
The films must be under ten minutes, all dialogue must be in Spanish or Portuguese, and English subtitles must be provided. As long as each film meets those requirements, the filmmakers have complete creative control, and the committee expects a wide range of genres and styles to be represented in the entries.
The project supports the College of Humanities' goal of public outreach. "We try to be as inclusive as possible," Mehr says. "You don't need to know Spanish or Portuguese to watch and appreciate these films."
The event will combine the film screenings with a reception offering free food and drinks thanks to a Student Affairs Student/Faculty Interaction Grant, as well as a chance to meet the filmmakers. Committee members will act as emcees, giving them a chance to convey their enthusiasm for the program and for the resulting films. “We love to see the work of the students," Mehr says. “These films are fun to watch and display a great deal of creativity."
“And who knows," Mehr adds. "Maybe this year we’ll be publishing the next viral video.”
Mehr, who has been learning Spanish for nearly eleven years and whose areas of study include poetry, theater, and film, believes that engaging creatively with one's target language deepens understanding and appreciation of that language. He remembers when, as an undergraduate, he began applying his knowledge of the Spanish language to writing poems.
Later, as a graduate student, Mehr had the opportunity to create a short film with some classmates, including Martínez-Sotelo. The film was an adaptation of a play called Vejigantes by Francisco Arriví. "Here was a group of seven grads with no real media arts experience, he recalls. "None of us had really created films, and suddenly we're moving from book to script to shooting to editing, and finally to presenting it at a grad symposium."
"After creating that film with Memo [Guillermo Martínez-Sotelo]," Mehr recalls, "he and I began to talk, thinking 'this is fun, this is an experience we can bring to other students.' That was the catalyst [for the DSP Film Festival]. It became a passion for Memo and I, who is actually doing his dissertation in film," Mehr explains. "We talked to the faculty, worked through all the paperwork, and now we’re just trying to make it bigger and better each year."
The DSP Film Festival is in its second year, but Mehr and Martínez-Sotelo hope to see it continue long after their involvement and to keep it as a Department of Spanish and Portuguese event that is shared with the rest of the UA and Tucson community. They are aiming to expand its scope, working toward getting Tucson high school students involved. "In future years, we’d like to see more community outreach by allowing high school Spanish students to submit films," Mehr says. "This year, we're encouraging them to attend the event, and we hope they'll see the possibilities for language-learning at the University."
All entries are kept private during the judging phases, but once the festival is complete, all the films are made available on the film festival’s Youtube page, even those who didn’t place as finalists or runners up, and the finalists’ films are available on the DSP’s Youtube page.
Last year’s first place winner, Herbie e Lilu, a film narrated in Portuguese, was written, produced, edited, and acted by a group of four undergraduate students, all with varying talents and all involved from start to finish. The ten-minute film explores the inner life of Herbie, a caged chameleon. Herbie longs for freedom, and the film takes on a magical element when Herbie gains freedom by eating a magic albino cricket, un grilo albino. The film ends in a jam session featuring Herbie perched on a guitar. The filmmakers’ love of music is beautifully conveyed through Herbie, who looks like he is dancing with every move he makes.
Tucker Bungard, the project lead for Herbie e Lilu, conveyed to the committee how much he and his group enjoyed the process as well as their pride in the end product. And the committee is proud of their product and the amount of creativity and effort required to make it. "It’s just a fun movie, says Mehr. "It's cute, clean, and enjoyable for anyone. My daughter loves it! She requests the film by name."
In its first year, all participating filmmakers had to be enrolled Spanish or Portuguese 350 or above. This year, only the team lead needs to be a declared major in the department who has taken at least one 300-level course. This was a change Department of Spanish and Portuguese faculty supported. "We want to encourage currently-enrolled UA students from all areas to participate," says Mehr. Through that exposure, he hopes to attract more students to the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and believes it can lead to a smart dual-major. Christine Johnson, one of the DSP committee members, is a dual-major in Media Arts and Spanish.
To aid the undergraduates in the process of creating these films, the committee has researched resources students have available to them, such as multimedia labs on campus where UA students have access to editing software. Gear to Go, an OSCR resource, offers equipment from easy-to-use to advanced. The DSP Youtube channel features playlists of tutorials that aid in editing.
"We try to provide them with the basics, and encourage them to explore," Mehr says. "We provide a 'Suggested Plan of Action' document that provides them with a step by step plan. For instance, the better prepared you are before you shoot, the better your film is going to come out. And we council them as far as music is involved, trying to inform them about copyright issues. We point them to where they can find creative commons music, or, as in the case of Herbie, they can circumvent that by creating their own soundtracks."
Details
DSP website: coh.arizona.edu/dspfilmfestival
Film Festival Date: April 26th, 2012
Time: TBD
Location: TBD
Film entries due by April 12
Interested in becoming a sponsor? Please contact the Film Festival Committee at dspfilmfestival@gmail.com