Budding filmmakers urged to enter Saginaw 72 contest

by Janet I. Martineau

Budding filmmakers dreaming of premiering their work at a film festival ... the Riverside Saginaw Film Festival wants you!

For the second year, the festival is hosting a Saginaw 72 Hour Film Challenge filmmaking contest.

The 72 refers to the fact filmmakers (solo or in teams) compete to make the best 3-5 minute short in a three-day time frame.

“Each entry will be given a specific genre; a line of dialogue, and a required object to include just before the start time to insure all entires are made on the fly and to also provide them with a little prep work information,” explains co-ordinator Susan Scott, a member of the film festival board. 

“Then they have 72 hours to script, shoot, edit and submit their film on DVD. The entry fee is $25. The 72 hours span Oct. 12-14, with an Oct. 14 mailing postmark. And all the entries will play the festival, with the winners announced at that showing.”

The amount of first, second and third prize monies awarded, Scott says, depends on the number of entries because the prize money comes from the $25 entry fee. Serving as the judge is a screenwriting professor at Delta College.

The 72-hour contest is the brainchild of Jerry Seward, a Saginaw  filmmaker and former Riverside Saginaw board member. He began it as a way to showcase local talent and involve community members in the  festival and the local film scene. 

He said when he began it the entires are judged more on creativity than production values and that policy continues this year. However, the festival reserves the right not to screen a submission if it contains offensive, off-color or bigoted language and material.

A full list of the rules and regulations, and an entry form, is on the festival web site at www.riversidesaginawfilmfestival.org 

There is no age limit for entrants, says Scott, nor is there a limit to the number of team members working on the entry. And the same for the film itself -- it can take the form of a self-filmed soliloquy to one of those Cecil B. DeMille cast-of-thousands jobs.

This year’s Riverside Saginaw Film Festival runs Thursday, Nov. 8, through Sunday, Nov. 11, with 26 independent, foreign, documentary and short films showing at the Court Theater, Pit and Balcony Community Theatre, First Congregational Church, the Saginaw Club and Hoyt Library.

The Saginaw 72 entries are shown at noon Sunday, Nov. 11,  at First Congregational Church, 403 S. Jefferson.