ST. CLOUD -- More than 100 films from over 27 countries are showing in central Minnesota this week.

St. Cloud is hosting its 9th annual Film Fest at The Black Box theater and St. Cloud State University’s Atwood Little Theater and Miller Center Auditorium. This year’s program kicked off on Saturday and features a variety of categories including animation, experimental, and documentary.

Stephan Clark is a writer, filmmaker, and professor at Augsburg University in Minneapolis. His short film “Old Media Studies” premiered as part of the Central Minnesota Showcase. He says he was inspired by the recent creation of a new media studies major at the university where he teaches.

So I took all of those worries that I had about this new major and said well let's propose creating an old media studies major where we study all the obsolete technology, and move away from all of the modern stuff, and take away the students' phones, and make the English major this sort of strange cult-like experience.

This is the first time he has screened a film, and he says he intentionally submitted to local festivals.

I looked for some local festivals that I could go to, and because I'm a Minnesota writer I wanted to stay local. St. Cloud happened to be on the FilmFreeway website that I was looking at, and I said 'yeah let's try that.'

Clark plans on submitting his film to other festivals and then starting up another short project in the future. He says anyone interested in getting into filmmaking should just go out and make a movie.

You only learn by making mistakes, so I would just encourage people to take on the risk and go out there and do it.

 

St. Cloud Film Fest runs through November 9th. You can check out a complete schedule by clicking the link below:

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