On Friday, May 2 , as warmer weather seeps onto campus, Calvin’s film students will be broadcasting their special features in a showcase at the CFAC auditorium. This ambitious spectacle comes after a year of expansion for the film department and the consequential restructuring of the presentations, which will feature a split showcase.
The Calvin Media Showcases, hosted every fall and spring semester, serve as an important celebration of film students’ collaborative team projects. Several of them, especially those for 300-level classes, are the result of undergraduates and faculty joining their talents together to complete the assignments before the showcase. Since ideas for the films are entirely student-run, the exhibition offers a unique opportunity for both students and their professors to relax and enjoy the inspiring results of their efforts.
According to Kendrick Satterfield, production manager in the communications department, the purpose-driven element of the showcase helps promote a higher sense of community among the film students. “Even just seeing your peers in your same class and seeing the type of work they were able to accomplish — I think there’s like an iron sharpens iron sort of concept,” he said.
Students first composed screenplays for their films in “COMM 248 – Screenwriting.” These outlines were afterwards given to peers in “COMM 351 – Media Production II” for the process of voting on the screenplays that would be filmed and adapted to the screen. Geert Heetebrij, associate professor of communications, describes the process as “lots of cross pollination and intertwining lines, so people enjoy just seeing each other’s work each semester.”
A Special Year
This year’s exhibition, however, presents a unique and exciting change. In 2023, forty students from Compass College of Cinematic Arts in Grand Rapids, Michigan, transferred to Calvin, which necessitated a higher number of film classes. The communications department is preparing for a split showcase to accommodate the expansion. The first half will involve nonfiction films and the second fiction, with an intermission in between them. Each half of the showcase will build from 100-level to 300-level, so students and faculty can discover the gradual progression of skill throughout the presentations.
The 2025 showcase will also feature a wider variety of films. The nonfiction section, for one, comprises stories about the women’s professional indoor volleyball team called the Grand Rapids Rise, a water polo player, a Calvin alum who enjoys rock climbing and an intergenerational train hobby. The fiction section will include an advanced project about a mother and her son in Chicago, which was partially filmed in the Chicago area and on the train to Chicago and Grand Rapids, as well as a number of comedies. With these ambitious advancements in the Communications department, there is further encouragement for students to submit their projects to film festivals and earn potential recognition from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
“A Taste of Home”
“A Taste of Home” was one film that received distinct honor among the student body, presenting a unique story of accomplishment, passion, and hard work. Jordan Boehm, director of the project, stated that his inspiration for the film emerged after visiting the local Thai Table restaurant, run by Mimi Wicsian and her husband Eak. After leaving their homeland of Bangkok, Thailand, the couple opened their dream business and achieved high success.
Boehm, who is also from Bangkok, noted that making the film with two of his classmates allowed him to further share his culture with his peers. “I hope that the film gives people the opportunity to see a different culture and the joy that Mimi and Eek have,” he said.
The film is currently undergoing the editing process and will be presented at the showcase in May. Boehm also has plans to enter the project in local film festivals and make “A Taste of Home” available on the internet.
According to Sam Smartt, associate professor of communications, the showcase overall offers a unique opportunity to present the special aspects of film production. “The media showcase is our chance to come out and be like, ‘Here we are! This is what we do.’ And it’s really fun to share that with the campus community,” he said.
