Clemson Film Club, in conjunction with Clemson’s world cinema program and department of graphic communications, hosted its fourth annual Clemson Film Festival on April 12. The all-day event showcased the best of the Clemson world cinema program and the culmination of months of work by film students and Film Club members.
The day began with the first two rounds of screenings for films nominated for awards and otherwise deemed exceptional by the organizers, along with a break between the two. Students then attended a panel of film industry professionals, hearing their stories of working in the film industry and asking questions.
Panelists included Emmy-nominated producer and Clemson professor of practice Sam Sokolow, Reedy Reels Film Festival co-founder Matt Foster and actors Courtney Cunningham, Tabitha Jordan, Angelina Beltrami and Matthew Settle.
After the industry panel, the final round of film screenings took place, followed by a red carpet for the club members and film creators to take photos and the awards ceremony.
The Tiger spoke with Molly Tippey, Clemson Film Club president and a senior marketing major, about the festival’s history and recent success.
“The film festival was founded by Savannah Gambrell four years ago, and it’s gotten better each year. The number of submissions has doubled since last year, and the average length of submissions has gone up by nearly 40 percent. This was the first year that we couldn’t show every film submitted, and we had to choose only the best ones,” Tippey told The Tiger.
The goal of the event, according to Tippey, is “celebration.” The club wants to celebrate students and their hard work and spread the word about film.
“The world cinema major started as a major nobody had heard of, and it’s now expanded to one of the fastest-growing majors on campus,” Tippey said.
Tippey also noted that the festival began as a Film Club event and has grown into a collaboration between the Film Club and the world cinema major at Clemson. Tippey believes it’s a “great networking opportunity” between students and industry panelists.
Despite all this success, Tippey remarked on the challenges the Film Club undertook to organize such a momentous event.
“All of it is a challenge. A rewarding challenge, but a challenge. The amount of work that it takes to prepare this is severely underestimated. We’ve been working on this all semester, some of us since last semester. We’ve been planning and planning. The whole executive team has put their hearts and souls into this,”
To Tippey, the biggest challenge is that “people don’t like to answer their emails. Even though we reach out to all these people, we are a relatively small club, and it’s hard to get answers.”
The collaboration with the world cinema program has led to increased assistance and participation from program faculty. Professor Sokolow spoke on his experience and role in helping the festival come to life.
“I am blessed to be teaching the production inside of the film program and really growing that so many of these students in many of these films were made in classes that I teach, and my contribution is an interesting one, one of the great boxing trainers in history, a gentleman named Cus D’Amato, who was Mike Tyson’s very first trainer,” Sokolow told The Tiger.
“There was an interview with Cus where he was asked, ‘How do you make champions? How do you teach champions?’ And he said, ‘I don’t teach anybody anything. I uncover and discover the talent that they already have in them and just help them pull it out and find it,’” Sokolow continued.
Sokolow feels this is what he’s doing with students and young artists. He believes everyone is very talented, wants to tell stories and has a passion for the work. The class is then able to explore that talent and passion.
The show’s true stars were the students who submitted works, showcasing their talent in front of and behind the camera to make their art. Sharbel Feghali, a senior world cinema major, worked extensively on his projects, films and the festival. Feghali was the director of films that won five of the festival’s 18 awards, including the People’s Choice award.
“It’s an honor to even be to be screened, selected to be screened, but getting all these nominations, it really means a lot. Filmmaking is not easy work at all. So to be highlighted for putting these films forward, it’s very personal and it’s an honor. I’m very proud of the films, but also all the nominees that are being screened tonight,” Feghali told The Tiger on his experiences at the festival.
After the awards ceremony, Feghali was overjoyed at his projects that won awards.
“I could not be prouder of the cast and crew of ‘THE HEXED.’ Tangerine Scene was incredible, and so was ‘A Piece of Me,’ and I’m so proud of ‘Oh, Godfather’s’ nominations, but I am especially proud of the cast and crew of ‘THE HEXED.’ You can’t make a movie without a cast. You can’t make a movie without a crew. They all made it happen,” Feghali said.
Diana Wells was another big winner. Wells was nominated for best actor in a drama for roles in two different films and won best actor in the drama “Memory Box,” which additionally won best drama.
Tippey won the best animation and best editing awards for her stop-motion short “Familiar Conversations.” Emma Hamrick, a sophomore world cinema major, won the screenwriting award for “Prying Pages.” Another of the most nominated films at the festival, Matthew Geraci’s “Bricks,” took home the best documentary trophy.
