By Victoria Anastasi
An auditorium filled with Towson University students, Baltimore residents, out-of-state visitors and international filmmakers all came to watch an array of short films that ranged from a simplistic animated movie about a caterpillar to a satirical short narrative about stuffing corpses.
These were only two of the films that were screened during Towson University’s 8th annual WAMMFest last weekend.
Photo by Victoria Anastasi
WAMMFest is the Women and Minorities in Media Festival held at Towson University through the Electronic Media and Film Department. According to its director and co-founder, Elsa Lankford, the festival celebrates and encourages diversity in film and audio.
Lankford said this year’s WAMMFest had 400 short film submissions, seven screenings over the weekend, and international submissions from 18 countries – the most the festival has ever had in each of these categories.
“I had to extend the deadline for when we tell people their piece was getting in because it was too difficult to decide,” Lankford said. “It would have been so hard to try and cut this down any more.”
The short films varied from dramatic documentaries and comedic narratives, to animated shorts and music videos. All of the films were created by women and minorities.
Each night was split into two 90-minute segments of short films with a 30 minute break in between the segments. On Saturday, there were also opportunities during the day to attend a master class, another short film screening and a panel discussion featuring a few of the filmmakers.
After each block of screening, the audience received a ticket that could give them a chance to win speakers at the end of each night. If audience members attended all seven screenings, they had the chance to win an iPad after the final Saturday night screening.
In addition, after the final screening on Saturday, the audience was given the opportunity to vote on the best film from the entire festival.
Different films appealed to various audience members. Some enjoyed dramatic narratives rather than documentaries, while others enjoyed animated films rather than music videos.
The stuffed corpse film, “No Corpse Dumping,” was Michael Angelella’s favorite.
Angelella, who is a screenwriting professor at Towson and the co-founder of WAMMFest, said the festival formed eight years ago because of the lack of diversity in the classrooms. He said Towson’s EMF department wasn’t spotlighting the work of women and minorities as well as it could, which reflected on the department’s diversity.
WAMMFest was then created by a few EMF professors, Lankford and Angelella included, to highlight the work of women and minorities at Towson.
Photo by Victoria Anastasi
After a few years, the festival reached an international level.
“Now to see it eight years later, how it’s grown, it’s really impressive,” Angelella said. “There’s an incredible rich diversity of movies from around the world. I love supporting it, and I encouraged all of the students in each of my writing classes to come and offered an extra credit opportunity.”
One studentwho took Angelella’s extra credit offer, Jayla Smothers, showed up to the Saturday night screening.
“I think it’s very great because it’s either by or in the interest of women and minorities,” said Smothers, 18 and a Pre-Electronic Media and Film major at Towson. “As women and minorities, or as both, we’re not really represented much in media, so this festival is really great for us.”
Smothers’ favorite movie was slightly different from the satirical piece that won over Angelella.
“The Red House” was a story set in 1915 China. It revolved around a 25-year-old prostitute, Fangfang, who was saving up money to buy back her contract to leave the prostitution home. While saving her money, a child got sold into the home and Fangfang was responsible for teaching her the ways to become a prostitute. After saving up enough money, Fangfang decides to give up her own freedom to save the child.
Smothers was touched by the film and said that she will be back next year.
Another student who was at WAMMFest for the first time was John Tune, a Mass Communications major and senior at Towson. His love for watching movies drove him to come to WAMMFest on Thursday night’s screening.
“It was something new,” Tune said. “I was most excited about the different cultures that I was going to see in the films. I never heard of it [WAMMFest] before and the main point is to give credit to women and minorities in film, which is something that a lot of people don’t think of right off the bat from just seeing a film.”
One Towson graduate who learned about WAMMFest her freshmen year as an EMF student had her film chosen for screening at this year’s event.
Natasha Marshall, 23, had been creating films ever since middle school. She still remembered her line in the very first film she created with her closest friends- “Look, pedestrians. Wave!”
After she dabbled in theater in high school, she worked her way to behind the camera while studying at Towson. During her freshmen year at Towson, Marshall discovered a spark that would later turn into a fully fledged short film documentary project.
The nonprofit organization, Students Helping Honduras, became the focus of Marshall’s documentary, which she shot in January 2014.
“I followed the Towson University chapter,” Marshall said. “The main purpose was to document why volunteers go to the most dangerous places in the world to help children in a Third World country. I was fascinated by Students Helping Honduras — this organization that builds schools and builds homes and takes these children out of the orphanages and gives them a second chance.”
Marshall’s documentary screened on Friday and was one of the films that left the audience sniffling.
“It got the audience in the right feel for what was going on,” Marshall said. “I had spent a lot of time editing this. You always feel that reassurance when you hear a response from the audience. I did hear a response so that’s that little pat on the back. As long as you’re making your audience feel something, that’s how I know I’m connecting.”
Connecting with the audience has been one of the main goals from the start for Lankford. She believes this festival has a lot of potential for outreach and impact, and she knows how important it is to highlight diversity in film.
“I’m proud to be associated with something where we can show such a diverse set of films that people are going to get so much out of,” Lankford said. “Whether it’s learning or laughter, it’s nothing else than a dialogue about how everybody should have their story told through their own lens.”