The filmmaking “bug” in UT students produce films with diverse perspectives

I have a bug inside of me that will never go away. It is a virus without a cure: the constant urge to create moving images. Films.
Perhaps you have that bug too. I know that there are at least a handful of other UT students who work countless hours, tirelessly staring at a computer screens or film viewers as if it were their lifeline — an extension of themselves.
Filmmaking is hard — really hard. Despite the difficulty, it is impossible for us to divorce ourselves from the moving image. It is a part of us forever, in the same way that a virus can never truly be eliminated.
The Center for Performing Arts is holding the annual Student Filmmaker’s Showcase at Center Theatre this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. It is the only time every year when the Department of Theatre and Film opens its doors to the public and showcases the blood, sweat and tears of those of us who have “the bug.”
Film professors hand-pick the best student’s work from the year and showcase it as one, but diverse, packaged collection of short films. There is no running theme or motif for the showcase other than variety.
The diverse films show us and project the different psyches of our peers. Not every filmmaker at the University of Toledo makes black and white 16 mm film dramas, similar to how not all painters use water color. The great thing about the annual showcase is that each film is sprung from a different perspective of the world.
Not only do we share our different views of the world, but we share different views of our university as well. All of the films in the showcase are products of the students at UT. Many of them were filmed right here on campus. Some will look like they were made right here at UT, while some will transform the university into another world.
James Aponte’s “Pursuit” was filmed on the engineering campus, but through clever lighting and framing looks almost unrecognizable. “Pursuit” exists in a space that we all share, but you would never know it. Other projects, like John Troth’s experimental documentary, “I’m Sorry For Being Such an Asshole” defy space entirely. Troth’s film seems to exist nowhere but in the filmmaker’s head.
The showcase is like an invitation to the many subjective angles of space and time. With the excessive use of cellphones and social media taking away our imaginations, we may not all be able see like filmmakers. However, that is not the point of filmmaking. The point is that we are all UT students — bug or no bug. We share a campus, a generation and a humanity. The Student Filmmaker’s Showcase is a celebration of that shared humanity — oh, and there’s a pretty cool free party after the show, too.
Evan Sennett is a first-year majoring in film studies, and he is also an IC cartoonist.