While working on a documentary about the hugely successful VCU French Film Festival, Scott Mills, instructor in the Department of Photography and Film, conceived the idea of bringing films shot by students around the world to the VCU’s diverse audience. Thus, the International Student Film Festival was born.
Mills, the festival’s founder and director, contacted hundreds of schools and professors in several countries to locate student filmmakers. Initially, he said he wanted to expose filmmaking students to films made by their foreign peers.
“I wanted to do it for the film students, so they can have an opportunity to see films that are being made by students from around the world,” Mills said.
A teacher in the 26-day Summer Education Abroad Program to Peru, Mills described his students experiencing a new and enriching way of life in Peru. One of Mills’ film students, a native of Thailand who now teaches at a film school in his homeland, submitted one of his students’ film to the festival.
“I hope to develop more relationships like that,” Mills said.
Mills won’t have to look too far. This year’s festival features 11 films from Austria, Italy, Germany, Israel, Canada, Australia and India, to name a few.
“We want to bring more attention to filmmaking, but also the international experience of it,” he said.
Mills plans on making the film festival, in its first year, an annual event. One has to wonder, in a university that prides itself on being one of the most multicultural schools in Virginia, what took so long?