FEATURES

Myspace, Facebook directly affect students

GHC gets behind Rome Film Festival

By Kristopher Baucom
[email protected]
Writer and Photographer

The hottest thing to come to town since General Sherman, The Rome International Film Festival (or the RIFF for short) brought international culture to Rome for the third year running.

Several Georgia Highlands faculty members contributed to the RIFF, which ran Sept. 7-10 at various Rome venues. Associate Professor of English Frank Minor and Professor of History Dr. Laura Musselwhite were both prominent members on the Adjudication Advisory Board, which decided upon the films to be shown.

Minor, who has worked with the RIFF in years past, gushed enthusiastically about how the RIFF gives students “exposure to different cultures” and “allows students to see films they otherwise wouldn’t.” He also stated that the selection process was very competitive this year and that “most of the films ended up on the floor.”

Musselwhite said that “the film festival received approximately 700 entries” and that this year “marked a change from multiple viewings to single viewings of most features.”

Musselwhite and Minor weren’t the only GHC employees involved with the RIFF this year.

Judy Taylor,GHC Advancement Officer, worked on the RIFF Board of Directors.

Seth Ingram, a client support specialist in the information technology department, submitted a film but failed to meet the deadline. Ingram writes screenplays in his spare time and has committed to entering his film in next year’s RIFF.

Ingram said he felt the festival was important to students. “It is a chance to let them experience independent films. You don’t get many good stories coming from Hollywood,” he said.

Counselor Krista Mazza, volunteered by selling tickets and t-shirts for the opening night film “Our Very Own.” For her work she received an all- access pass to the festival.

Highlights of the festival were a short documentary on local folk musician Stranger Malone and the opening movie,“Our Very Own,” which played out like a piece of Southern- fried Americana.

Several of the shorts were well received. For example, “Flight” was an animated short about the history of man’s at tempts at aviation, and “Robots are Blue” presented an existential view of what it means to be human and have free will.

Another crowd favorite was the movie “The Greater Good,” which was about a conspiring group of aging Mafia bosses who are offered a billion dollars to detonate a nuclear bomb on top of the Empire State Building.