On April 28, Guilford College will premiere new films starring your classmates.
The 10th annual Homegrown Film Festival will feature movies developed by students both in and out of their classes.
Guilford’s student filmmakers vary in background. Some discover a love of video at college, while some arrive on campus already knowing what they want to do.
“The moment I began taking classes at Guilford, I was involved in film,” said Admissions Counselor Zachary Kronisch ‘14 in an email interview.
Movie devotees do not have to move to Hollywood to study filmmaking. They can come to a liberal arts college like Guilford and still follow their bliss.
“Nothing else seemed more appealing as a lifestyle or a way to make money than making video,” said Tom Clement ‘14 in a phone interview.
Sometimes, all it takes is one class.
“I’m very new in the film world,” said first-year Erin Kye, who took Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies and Head of Film Studies Chad Phillips’s First Year Seminar: “Filming the Personal Narrative.” “I just kind of fell in love with the process when I was in the FYS class.”
While at Guilford, Siyabonga Nxumalo ‘15 interned at Fox 8 to edit sports videos but became interested in other types of film thanks to his studies.
“I think it had a lot to do with … Chad Phillips’s “Artistry in Film” class completely blowing my mind with the possibilities (of) achievement in cinema,” said Nxumalo in an email interview.
It can be hard for newly impassioned videographers to locate one another on Guilford’s small campus.
“It’s surprising whenever I do find people that I didn’t know through my class or through (The Guilfordian) video team,” said Kye. “It’s an automatic connection of, ‘ah, you’ve spent so many hours in the basement of Bauman too.’”
To pursue video at Guilford is to be self-driven.
“I’m just going to do what I’m interested in and then make it work for me somehow,” said junior Nellie Vinograd, head of The Guilfordian’s video department and president of Photo and Film Club. “If you want to do film or anything related to it, you just have to … make it happen on your own, which is hard.”
Film students choose to conquer this challenge and put in the hours to pursue their passion. Kronisch was a teaching assistant for Phillips’ FYS, co-founded the Guilford Film Society (now Photo and Film Club), headed The Guilfordian video team and filmed for the Office of Advancement.
Sophomore Jonah Woodstock, while sitting in on the Guilfordian Practicum for video and acting as an officer in Photo and Film Club, is creating an independent study to pursue narrative film production.
Work with video does not have to end after graduation. Clement is doing production jobs, freelance corporate videos and even music videos; Nxumalo is doing freelance video and photo work and Chris Lett ‘06 is a producer at CNN.
Lett was a business major who minored in communications. He was just as self-driven as any current film student, making sure his photography classes had a journalistic spin while working for The Guilfordian. However, Lett was finally sure what career he wanted to pursue after volunteering with AmeriCorps and assisting at a legal aide office.
“I was like, ‘whoa, I want to be able to tell the stories of these … people,’” said Lett in a phone interview. “(Since) I started at CNN, … I want to change the world through media.”
At Homegrown, students will get the chance to see authentically Guilford media whether in the form of short films like Kye’s documentary on Professor of Art Roy Nydorf or videos Woodstock has produced for The Guilfordian.
“It’s free popcorn, it’s good movies and it’s our community,” said Phillips. “Why wouldn’t you want to come?”
The Homegrown Film Festival will be held Thursday, April 28, at 8 p.m. in Joseph M. Bryan Jr. Auditorium.
