The fourth annual South Georgia Film Festival is just a few days away right here in our very own Blazer Nation.

The South Georgia Film Festival not only bring filmmakers, students and the community together, but it also draws attention to Valdosta as a whole. With all the attention growing on the south side of Georgia, more filmmakers will be likely to produce more films in the area.
The city of Valdosta sponsoring the event, the City of Columbus will be one of the many cities attending the festival. Jason Brown, mass media professor and festival director said that the City of Valdosta will be discussing their film fund and how it helps films get made in their community.
“The Georgia Production is coming down to hold their south regional meeting on Saturday to talk about how they are bringing productions to Valdosta and South Georgia,” Brown said.
The South Georgia Film Festival is a place for everyone. Even if you are not necessarily interested in making films.
“There’s a lot of other stuff to take advantage of. If you’re in [the industries of] lumber, hotels, another service industry and manufactures of some kind, there’s plenty of ways to be in the film industry and this is a place to come learn about that.”
The popular festival is a three-day event the first week of March, consisting of numerous events such as dozens of film screenings, panels, parties and a great experience to interact with the filmmakers and producers that will be in attendance.
Brown said that this year’s festival will be an improvement to past events.
“We will be screening over 100 films this year and we’re going to have more out-of-town filmmakers actually come to campus and screen their films and be available to meet students and the community as well,” Brown said. “We are having 45 different filmmakers coming to town.”
Alongside the numerous films that will be shown, there will be available times where people can attend different panel discussions and interact with the filmmakers.
“We have professionals coming from across the country and across the region to come to talk about audio, crowdfunding, camera work, and some other things,” Brown said. “One of them [the panels] we are most excited about is the organization in Atlanta called Film Impact Georgia, they’re coming to talk about what they’ve been doing to strengthen the local filmmaker in Georgia including a biannual grant that they give out for people to make their films.”
When people think of professional filmmakers they usually think of films that are shown at the movie theater, however, that is not always the case. At the South Georgia Film Festival, that is one thing that a lot of people will begin to notice.
“A lot of professional filmmakers are still making short films to hone their crafts and they just have stories to tell,” Brown said “We have some amazing short films that I would encourage people to check out as well”
While there are professional filmmakers, there will also be a lot of college filmmakers as well and not only from VSU.
“We have a lot of films this year from Florida State, North Georgia, American Film Institute and we have a few VSU students,” Brown said. “There’s a lot of great college filmmakers that are going to be here and have great films.”
One of the many filmmakers includes Heather Hutton, a graduate from Savannah College of Art and Design . Hutton created a film called “Touch and Go” about the inappropriate event(s) that tend to happen while a young woman is learning to get her pilot license.
With all the films and panels to attend all day, there will be parties to finish off the nights. There will be three big parties for each the film festival days.
“We are shutting down the street at Georgia Beer Company and we’re going to have food trucks,” Brown said. “They made a special beer for us this year. And on top of that, we’re having another great party at Holiday Inn and then we close out the weekend at Ashley street station.”
The South Georgia Film Festival will be held on the third floor of the Student Union from March 6-8. High school and college students have the chance to come to any film and/or panel discussion for free when they obtain the online bar code.
For more information about the schedule and available passes go to www.southgeorgiafilm.com

Written by Jasmin Small, Staff Writer. Photo Courtesy of Jason Brown.

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