This Friday marks the start of the fourth annual Student Experimental Film Festival (SEFF), hosted by Binghamton University’s cinema department and several local venues and establishments. Students in the “Curating Film and Video” course, taught by Tomonari Nishikawa, organized the festival. Artist-in-residence Peter Bo Rappmund will be serving as the Special Juror.
Coordinators of the festival, like Ashley Verbert, a senior majoring in cinema, are responsible for getting students around the country to apply. This year has garnered 112 submissions nationwide, 45 of which have been chosen — and only seven of which are Binghamton students. Other contestants hail from Cornell, SUNY Fredonia, RISD and Pratt.
Nishikawa has given feedback to his students based on his knowledge of and experience with curating other festivals.
“[He] spoke about how it’s the small details like the heating of an area in the winter that people may forget, it something he forgot to take care of early on in his curating experience,” Robel Ftau, another coordinator and a junior double-majoring in cinema and English, wrote in an email.
SEFF isn’t associated with the Student Association and much of the fundraising has taken place off campus, including at Cold Stone, Sweet Frog and on Kickstarter. The organization is split into different groups — programmers, designers, web masters and fundraisers — each of which are responsible for a different aspect of the festival.
Jared Biunno, one of the festival’s two web masters and a senior majoring in cinema, said SEFF is important because it establishes a sense of unity among filmmakers and cinema students.
“It’s an event that the entire department can come out for and rally around and support,” Biunno said. “And it’s fun, it’s interesting to see what filmmakers from places like Iowa are doing. What’s the experimental film program in Montana putting out, for instance?”
There are four programs, each accompanying one of the four venues for the festival. Beginning with “Escape,” curated by Daniel Hong, this initial program will include films from SUNY Purchase, Franklin & Marshall, Bard and Binghamton’s own, Garrick Givens (’12) for his film “Immobile.” Next is the program “Prism,” curated by Ken Omiya. The remaining six Binghamton submissions are showcased in this program, beginning with “Splatter,” a film by Rebecca Rossman. Cyber Café West will premiere Anna Cassady’s curation, “The World Around Us.” This program includes submissions from Cornell, UC Berkley, California Institute of the Arts and Emerson College. The fourth and final program will be “Defunct Aesthetics,” curated by Jon Su, which begins with a submission from California Institute of the Arts.
Beginning at 6 p.m. tonight at the Art Mission & Theater, the event will take place at a total of four venues. 20 Hawley Street will host at 8 p.m. Friday, and Cyber Café West will continue the festivities at 3 p.m. Saturday, concluding with the Bundy Museum at 6 p.m. that evening.