Students of Competitive Filmmaking & Global Media Lab Screen Award-Winning Films Worldwide: Vienna, Berlin, Austin & Seattle
The short film “Delirium” created by IAS faculty member Masahiro Sugano’s 2020 “Competitive Filmmaking” class has been screened worldwide. The film, created by eight UW Bothell students entirely during remote learning, captures the contradictions of the current moment (isolated, yet collective; chaotic, yet static; new, yet ancient) with warmth, depth, and humor, offering a reminder of the ongoing power of collaboration and community.
Locally, “Delirium” was an official selection of the Shoreline Short Short Film Festival 2021 as well as Friday Harbor Film Festival 2021. The film screened at Seattle’s 2021 Cadence Video Poetry Film Festival and won the “Best of Northwest” category, a second top prize win for “Delirium” following the class’ win of the “Top Prize in Poem Film Adaptation” at Berlin’s ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival. Additionally the student film was also selected and screened in the experimental international side program of The Vienna Poetry Film Festival held at the Vienna Künstlerhaus from November 9 to 13, 2021. The film was further selected as a semi-finalist for the Austin Arthouse Film Festival which held its virtual screening events from December 26-31, 2021.
Students from both Masahiro Sugano’s Competitive Filmmaking and Global Media Lab courses also screened their films at the 24th Annual Local Sightings Film Festival held at Seattle’s Northwest Film Forum (NWFF). A total of three films from both these advance level video production courses in the Media & Communication Studies major screened in the 2021 program, which ran from September 16–26, and featured a competitive regional selection of curated short film programs and feature films that experiment, break, and remake popular conceptions around filmmaking and film exhibition. Local Sightings is known to champion emerging and established talent, support the regional film industry, and promote diverse media as a critical tool for public engagement.
Students of Global Media Lab, a Spring intensive filmmaking course co-taught by both Anida Yoeu Ali and Masahiro Sugano, held a world premiere for two student films “Unbecoming” and “Anino Rebellion” at NWFF with faculty and students in attendance. Both films screened multiple times and were available for both in-person and virtual viewings.
Both courses teach hands-on film production techniques in a focused learning environment for students to create fully-realized video projects. The emphasis for both classes is to push creative and collaborative boundaries based on the idea of “limitations as aesthetics” whereby students learn to transform their restrictions and challenges into conceptual frameworks.
Watch “Unbecoming”
Producer: Madi Galiardi
Director: Bee Guzman-Elliott
Editor: Simon Shaw
Unbecoming is a short dance film about the disorienting experience of escaping conformity.
Watch “Anino Rebellion”
Producer:Niaylah King
Director: Adda Lee
Editor: Niaylah King
Anino Rebellion is a sci-fi inspired music video featuring singer/songwriter Golda Sargento set in a dystopian world where music is regulated through recycled old televisions. Anino in Tagalog is the word for shadow and refers to the rebellion of those cast away into the shadow.
Watch “Delirium”
Producer:Chelsea Moser
Directors:Thelma Tunyi & Shanley Fermin
Editor: Shanley Fermin
Delirium is a short film based on the poem “Lethe” by Tjawangwa Dema that utilizes original collage artwork and animation techniques intertwined with live-action videography to express the reality of a character with a cognitive affliction.