News and Events
20th Annual Notre Dame Student Film Festival
January 22-23-24, 2009
The wildly popular Notre Dame Student Film Festival returns to campus on Thursday, January 22nd, Friday, January 23rd, and Saturday, January 24th, 2009 in the state-of-the-art Browning Cinema inside the DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts.
This year we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the festival that began in the basement of the Center for Continuing Education in 1990 (now McKenna Hall) with 50 people in attendance. Today, the festival traditionally sells out each screening with over 1000 people viewing a brand new slate of creative, intelligent, and entertaining student films produced during the past year.
The Notre Dame Student Film Festival screens each night at 6:30pm and 9:30pm. Tickets are $3 for Notre Dame students, $5 for Notre Dame faculty and staff and $6 for the general public, and can be purchased online at performingarts.nd.edu or in advance at the Performing Arts Center Box Office, 574-631-2800.
With past festivals selling out, we recommend buying your tickets early!
The Notre Dame Student Film Festival features short student films, made as class projects during the past year by students studying the art of filmmaking in advanced, intermediate, and Introductory film and video production courses taught in the FTT department. All of the films were shot on location, most in the South Bend area, but some as far away as Rome, Italy. Local Michiana residents, fellow students, and ND faculty loaned their acting skills to the projects which range from 3 to 15 minutes in length. From dark comedy to documentary, the films cover a wide range of genres.
2009 Notre Dame Student Film Festival Featured Films
(total running time 112 minutes)
Dana
(Benford Begay, Macarena Ivanissevich )
With the familiarity of the Navajo reservation left behind, acclimating to life in the Midwest, at a private Catholic University, becomes a culture shock for Dana, one of Notre Dame's few Native American students.
The Deily Work 
(Eric Sales, Julian Owyong )
Filmmakers Eric Sales and Julian Owyong follow the deeply spiritual rituals of an Opus Dei member, from the Windmoor House at Notre Dame, to the Vatican in Rome.
Deaners
(Brittany Lash, Jenni Fong)
You might think the tiny town of Fairmount, Indiana is a strange place to move all of your belongings and settle down...unless of course you're a loyal James Dean fan.
Our Lady's Bouncers
(Danielle Sclafani, Christina Marzo, Katie Dare)
A transfer student from Philadelphia finds the most difficult part of her move to Notre Dame is trying to drive her car past the famed security gate guards. She’s not alone.
Believe in You
(Mark Weber, Ian Cooney)
The Lake Michigan coastline provides a picturesque backdrop for this refreshing music video by the John Conroy Band…
Blocked
(Ryan Geldermann, Mark Lyons)
Writer’s block plays out in stylish give-and-take between the artist and a romantic interest.
The Birthday Wish
(Daniel Clark, Elise Yahner)
A quiet birthday in solitude turns on that innocent wish made just before the candle’s blown out.
7 Minutes in Hell
(Kate Leszkowicz, Terrail Lambert)
Some harmless fun at the weekend party spirals into a closet full of trouble.
Javier Ramos 6/18
(Matthew Degnan)
A very disciplined Marine veteran, just back from two deployments in Iraq, calls the VA's phone center at 8 a.m. to attempt to secure what is owed him -- his college tuition. At 8 p.m. that same night, he is still on the same phone call, waiting to speak with a living human being who can provide him the information he needs. Javier is in a kind of agony... stuck, as we all are these days, in one of the digital phone traps that waste our time, our energy, and certainly our good will.
Cirrhosis with Coda
(Ashley Ahn Williams, Benford Begay)
A dazzling experiment in film poetry. Beautifully photographed, a female emerges from an old condition and some very bad trips. She remembers times when "thousands of multicolored fragments became space camels--wildflowers painted onto canvases, pink, orange, and floral." And the times when she picked up men like flies, and swatted them all away. She tells it in verse -- in English and then in seductive Italian translation. In the end, she tells us, "I am just an indentured servant to madmen."
Prologue
(Joe Piarulli, Dan Milan)
A numbing story about a teenage boy who could have prevented the rape of his best friend, but got distracted and didn't. He reviews and reconstructs that night's events in a prologue and 4 acts... an act of therapy and a search for relief from his inescapable guilt. He tells about the pain of the fathers, the brothers and the friends.
Reveries of Desire
(John Meehan, Becky Katricak, Rob Doone)
A paper pusher with the heart of Charlie Chaplin dreams of saving the girl-next-desk from his evil boss.
The Dinner Guest
(Joe Gleason)
An elegant period piece about a close knit family that prepares for the arrival of their mother’s suitor.
Confessions
(Krissy Estrada, Luke Tabit)
A funny thing happened on the way to the confessional. A jealous boyfriend plays a joke on his girlfriend only to find out things he didn’t want to hear.
Archives
2008 ND Student Film Festival
2006 ND Student Film Festival
2005 ND Student Film Festival
2004 ND Student Film Festival
2003 ND Student Film Festival
2002 ND Student Film Festival
2001 ND Student Film Festival
2000 ND Student Film Festival
1999 ND Student Film Festival
1998 ND Student Film Festival
1997 ND Student Film Festival
1996 ND Student Film Festival
Student Film Archives
See Also...
NDTV - student managed television production company
WVFI Radio - student managed online station