Progeny’s Got Short Films
The 17th annual Progeny Short Film Festival, a student ran event, will be held at the Moss Arts Center on October 17th at 6:00 p.m. The Progeny Short Film Festival is an annual festival held in Blacksburg, Virginia by the Virginia Tech School of Performing Arts. The goal of the festival is to provide a platform for independent filmmakers and students in Southwest Virginia to showcase their work to anyone and everyone who enjoys short films.
“Our goal is to provide a platform for those in our community making thought-provoking content,” said festival director Virginia Gray.
“To maintain our proper social distancing and safety precautions this year, we had to limit the festival to 140 audience members,” said Gray. “Masks are required, and we even made custom Progeny masks for everyone who attends the festival.”
Due to the on-going Covid-19 pandemic, and for the first time, the Progeny Short Film Festival will hold a simultaneous virtual and in-person event. The event will be held in the Moss Arts Center in the Fife Theatre. “It’s really important for us to have the festival in a physical space and be able to bring the community together,” said Gray. “Our local Blacksburg community and Southwest Virginia is the essence of Progeny.”
To attend either the in-person event or the virtual event, you must pre-register. The pre-registration links can be found on the homepage of the Progeny Short Film Festival website.
To kick off this year’s festival, the band Gloz will perform before the start of the film screenings. Gloz is a band local to Blacksburg, Virginia that writes ‘punk music.’ Following the performance from Gloz, 21 short films will be showcased from six different categories; animation, documentary, experimental, Hokie short, international and narrative. The 21 short films have been submitted from creators all around the country, but four current and recently graduated Virginia Tech students will be featured in this year’s film festival.
Anyone can submit a short film to the festival, no matter where you live. The rules for submitting a film are listed on the Progeny Short Film Festival website.
By having your short film shown at the festival, you don’t only get exposure, but you can also win prizes! Each category will have one winner, selected by a panel of four judges composed of cinema and art professors, that will take home a cash prize of $150; winners are also given a printed certificate of achievement. There will also be a no cash, judges award as well as an audience award on the best film; winners of these awards will receive a printed certificate.
“Having students run the event is really cool,” said directors assistant Perry Williams. “It gives us good experience on how to run film festivals and lets us see how they run.”
What is interesting about the Progeny Short Film Festival is that it is run entirely by Virginia Tech students, or recently graduated students. Lead by festival director Virginia Gray, she and nine other students coordinate and run the festival. There are six positions; festival director, submissions coordinator, online festival coordinator, head of marketing, director’s assistant and faculty, Virginia Tech; all covered by Virginia Tech students.
If you love short films or films in general, you need to attend, in-person or virtually, this event. With 21 different short films, you’ll have an evening full of action, adventure, information and laughs. “Everyone’s been working hard to ensure this festival is the best one yet,” said Gray. “Anyone who attends the festival this year can expect some great, live music and some pretty fantastic short films.” For more information, you can visit the Progeny Short Film Website here: https://filmfreeway.com/progenyfest
