Urbana Film Fest
by Shannon Whiting
With all that goes on at a missions convention for over 20,000 people, how can a full film festival possibly squeeze its way in?
It can’t.
“That put a traditional film fest possibility out of the equation. It’s titled Film And Forum for a reason,” said Nate Clarke, director of the new festival to appear at Urbana 09.
Rather than play hours of film for public critique, Clarke (founder of Fourth Line Films and senior producer of InterVarsity’s 2100 Productions) will partner with Norman Mintle (head of film at Regent University) to provide a venue at the convention for those with a knack for production.
Over the course of three hour-and-a-half length sessions, attendees will discuss not only the qualities of the short films they watch, but also their lessons for filmmakers – lessons, which Clarke said, have been a long time coming.
“It’s pretty clear that visual communication is not going away,” Clarke said, adding that it’s also becoming a great tool for inspiring people into God’s global call for missions.
“But just because those things exist doesn’t mean that we can do it well.” Because of this, there’s a need, Clarke says, for filmmakers to have not only a heart for God, but also great storytelling ability.
The first two sessions, titled “Telling the Missions Story” and “Telling the World’s Story,” will address the how-to of the storytelling method that includes viewers in the mission.
Though the target audience is young filmmakers and communication students, the first session will cater to the communication managers of mission agencies.
“I’ve seen too many well-intended mission agencies creating promo pieces that amount to a leader looking into the camera and giving a vision statement,” Clarke said. While such videos are informational for the ministry’s internal crowd, it’s “just words for the external, those looking to give.” Instead, “we’d love for people to start thinking creatively, strategically for their mission,” he said.
Though it’s not an official track of Urbana, where students sign up in advance to live in the same community throughout the conference, the staff is still hoping to provide a small filmmakers’ community.
“In addition to actual seminars and round table discussions we want to see people meeting over meals,” to discuss creative filmmaking, Clarke said. He expects a good turnout, thanks to the growing trend of visual proficiency in both missions and global filmmaking.
“Our eye has improved,” Clarke said, but he’s not convinced our message is improving at the same rate.
“If you want a depressing experience, go into Vimeo and YouTube and type in ‘missions trip,’” he said. “It’s painful on a number of levels.”
Those painful levels undulate between “beautiful scenery that says nothing” and footage of “white people hugging little black kids.”
The content of these films “usually reflects a posture in our hearts,” Clarke said, “that ‘missions equals me going to save these people and life is horrible for them unless I come.’”
Instead, Clarke hopes to see more proof of the incarnational model of missions encouraged at Urbana and illustrated in Clarke’s recent production Round Trip.
“That’s why we want to show videos that tell a different story and posture – joy and triumph, but also heartache and loss in a way that honors the viewer and the subject,” he said. “And we want to prepare, challenge and equip other people to do the same.”
Though the films of the festival are predetermined, Clarke invites hopeful participants to contact him personally with questions and feedback on their own projects: nclarke@intervarsity.org. Find out more about Urbana's Film Fest and Forum.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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