The annual NUTV Student Film Festival is back: What to expect this year
By Daman Singh, October 14 2024—
NUTV is the heart of film production at the University of Calgary, a place where they’ve given spaces and opportunities to student filmmakers. For the sixth year, NUTV is bringing back their Student Film Festival to the Globe Cinema on Oct. 16, curating Alberta’s finest and silliest short films for an ever-so-entertaining evening.
In 2017, NUTV started their summer film school to open an intensive four-month program for students to gain industry-grade skills and have their film by the end of it. In an interview with the Gauntlet, NUTV producer Ingrid Vargas talked about the festival and how the summer film program intersects with it.
“NUTV started it to give more of our members opportunities, like a hands-on experience of filmmaking, besides our regular productions,” said Vargas. “[The festival and the program] started coexisting because then that way we could display all the work the students did during the summer.”
In its six years of being, the festival has become a showcase of student talent and skill all because of the summer film school. The program runs from May to September and has three to five students, depending on how many applications NUTV receives.
The program is heavily collaborative as every summer student works on each other’s projects. Creating a space of collaboration, everyone gets a chance to work on something different, from directing to sound editing.
“It’s nice because they get a bit of a sample of all the roles that they can do on set, which I think expands them and what they think they want to do in film if they want to pursue it as a career,” said Vargas. “It’s more for the community than anyone else.”
Into the mind behind Strangers in the Night
This year’s lineup features 10 short films, with three coming from the summer film program. The Gauntlet got to chat with Natalie Schmidt, the director of Strangers in the Night, about her work and her time with the summer film program.
Schmidt is a film and communications student at U of C. She’s been involved with NUTV as a volunteer working on their productions for two years now. This year she was part of the summer film program. Schmidt was drawn to the summer film program owing to the lack of practical, hands-on experience in the university’s film program.
“[The university is] really just focused on theory and analysis of films, which is very helpful. I do think that it makes you a better filmmaker, for sure. I also wanted to learn how to do the filmmaking part of it. I wanted to learn, you know, how movies are actually made,” said Schmidt.
Working in the cohort she did, Schmidt talked about how all three students had similar ideas getting into the program. Making films was the end goal and being able to get along well gave them space to help each other work the best they could.
“We were pretty lucky in the fact that [the students] all seemed to really get along right off the bat. Filmmaking is what the three of us want to do,” said Schmidt.
Commenting on the collaborative nature of the summer film program, Schmidt talked about her experience being in all different roles and how she enjoyed learning from different sides.
“I think that everyone who goes to film school has a dream of being the director and the writer and being very ego-driven, in a way, and wanting to have it be like ‘this is all me’… but through the program, you also learn how integral other people’s jobs are,” Schmidt continued.
Since all three students worked on each other’s film, Schmidt had a chance to be the producer for Mystic Murder (Gracie Heeg) and cinematographer for Door of Doom (Mohamed Ali). The experience with all the different roles allowed her to work on her own film better. Heeg and Ali were the other two students in the program that had the chance to showcase their work.
“By the time then we did my film where I was the director, I knew how to better communicate with the other students because I knew what it was like doing their jobs. I knew how the camera worked, and I knew what the camera was able to do, so I was able to better communicate what i wanted for my shot.”
Schmidt’s feature, Strangers in the Night, is about a young woman who becomes obsessed with the sexual lives of her next-door neighbours.
“[It’s about] a girl who hears her neighbours having sex and she goes on a journey from disgust to arousal to obsession, and she just becomes obsessed with her neighbours. She gets turned on by [it], like wants in on it. It’s not as straightforward as that. There’s nuance to it.”
She cites Brian De Palma, David Lynch, gothics and melodramas as her influences as she explores voyeurism, the human experience, religion and queerness in her work.
“I wanted to kind of do a story that didn’t have like, a clear ‘this is right, or this is wrong.’ I’m sure a lot of people would say getting aroused by your next-door neighbours having sex is like crossing a boundary in a way but that it does happen,” she said.
Finishing off, Schmidt expressed excitement about her first short film being screened at the festival.
“I mean, it’s just exciting because you know, that’s the whole goal, right? To get your film on the big screen, and it is on the big screen,” said Schmidt.
The festival will begin at 7 pm on Oct. 16 at the Globe Cinema. Tickets to the free event can be reserved here.