When our submissions closed on Film Freeway, we had over 1400 films that were sent to us from around the globe! Our student programmers worked diligently over the winter break and now have that number down to under 300, but there’s still a long way to go!
How do we manage the selection process?
The LJMU MA Short Film Festival has an incredibly fast turnaround from submission to actual festival. The reason for this is because it is run as part of an MA module at Liverpool John Moores University (find out about the MA course). What this means is that the festival is entirely run by students, under the supervision of festival director Lydia Papadimitriou and festival coordinator Jacqui Griffin.
The students work to pick out the films for the festival, first as individuals and then as groups. Each student is initially assigned a certain number of films and every film gets reviewed by at least two students. After the students select an initial long list of films, they break into three groups (fiction, documentary, and animation) and further fine-tune the selection list.
That’s the stage we are at now!
Who are the students?
I’m glad you asked! We will be “meeting” some of them in our upcoming blogs. They’re a lovely group of young people from all over the world, including several native Liverpudlians. I know they can’t wait to bring the second edition of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival to you.
The LJMU MA Short Film Festival will take place the 1-8 April 2022.