MASSCOMM // BIOLA //

SUNDANCE
Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival has become the most important film festival in the U.S. for independent filmmakers. During Interterm, 20 Biola students will travel to the festival's site in Park City, UT to attend film screenings, sit in on lectures, and participate in a dialogue on film & faith as part of a three-unit course.

Biola students will join others who are part of Windrider Forum, sponsored by Priddy Brothers Productions, for a dialogue on film and faith. Windrider is a loose partnership of several faith-based institutions, including the Colorado extension of Fuller Seminary, undergraduate film students from Biola University and Northwest Nazarene University, award-winning student filmmakers from the Angelus Student Film Festival, and members of the Park City church community. Participants screen 10 films during their time at Sundance. Craig Detweiler, chair of mass communications at Biola University, serves as instructor for the forum.

..“While these films challenged the mind, they also stirred the soul. They hit you hard and provoked so many different feelings because they were truthful and didn’t hold anything back."

..“Talking with some of the directors of the films shown made the whole idea of making a film seem more attainable.”

Read more Biola Sundance Student Reaction / Comments

Click here to view more photos taken at The Sundance Film Festival

Joining In on the Conversation…
There is a serious God-conversation going on in our culture, but often the church is unaware of it—not even invited to the dance, many say. The Sundance Film Festival provided a dynamic learning laboratory for students to engage in this cultural dialogue as it takes shape.

These discussions took place in question-and-answer sessions after each film, in classroom meetings visited by Sundance filmmakers—and while waiting in the lines, sitting in the coffee shops, or attending the parties that all make up the Sundance scene

"At the heart of many of the Sundance films is a cry for compassion," said Kara Stewart, a Fuller participant. "If that's what we're about as followers of Christ, then we have some middle ground—a place to start a meaningful dialogue."

Biola at Sundance
by Casey Clark
During the last week of January 2005, 16 student and five staff members of Biola’sMass Comm department traveled to Park City, Utah to experience a week of the Sundance Film Festival, today’s top venue for independent film premieres. They attended film screenings, discussions, parties, and classes to gain a realistic understanding of the industry. Peggy Rupple, Special Projects Coordinator for Mass Comm, coordinated the trip, working with the Windrider Forum, a group that brought together 60 students from Fuller Theological Seminary, Biola University, and Northwest Nazarene in Boise, ID to provide a dynamic learning laboratory for students to engage in cultural dialogue as it takes shape. Rupple hoped that students would be “empowered to integrate the spiritual into their work…a place where Christ needs to be.”

Craig Detweiler, Mass Comm chair, served as both professor and tour guide, teaching students to navigate Sundance and the independent film business. He believes the more experience students can get in the real film world the better.

Students paid $1,250 to attend Sundance, which included tuition for the three-unit class, lodging, daily breakfast and lunch and nine tickets to films. Members of Mountain Vineyard Church in Park City provided their homes and condos for student lodging. On a typical day, students met for breakfast and a class session at the local Christian Center at 9:00 am. Then they caught a bus to town or a film venue. Throughout the day, they viewed two to four films, stood in line for more tickets, and returned to the Christian Center for another class session. Later, they headed to dinner and checked out Main St. where there was a filmmakers’ lounge and a music café, and on some nights, parties and awards ceremonies.

On Friday night the Angelus Awards, one of the world’s largest student film festivals, presented some of their award winning films at a screening for the Windrider Forum, sharing some of the best examples of redemptive, transformative, and artistically powerful films. Each film at Sundance provided a chance for reflection. After most, a Q & A session offered an opportunity to ask the filmmakers and actors about their choices and experience. Film topics ranged from teens struggling with the power of drugs to pro-life as a good choice for a mother. Students learned through the films that there was a lot of hurt, despair and anger in the world, but that the filmmakers were in a heartfelt search for answers. “Most films ...couldn’t resolve their problems. God would be an answer, but they haven’t reached Him yet,” said freshman Nick Patapoff. “God’s truth has a way of showing up in films, and consequently, the audience is deeply moved, even if they don’t know why,” offered Senior Nate Bell. Students were encouraged to apply their faith to the films. They discussed the importance of going from a W.W.J.D? mindset to a W.I.J.D?, or: What is Jesus doing?

BIOLA STUDENTS’ REACTIONS/COMMENTS
To the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and the inaugural WINDRIDER FORUM

“Sundance is a merging of all that is our culture. The profane, the insane, the stalkers, the stalked, the star struck and the star burned. It is so beautiful in this insane kind of way, the way you love someone despite all their flaws.”“

Overall, there could be no neutrality of your emotions during the screenings of the films at Sundance. Generally, the state I was in was that of excitement and animation, because of the sheer thrill of the experience.”

“While these films challenged the mind, they also stirred the soul. They hit you hard and provoked so many different feelings because they were truthful and didn’t hold anything back. They didn’t worry about offending the audience; in fact that was probably the goal for a lot of them. They wanted to wake people up, get them thinking and get them talking.”

“My experience at the Sundance Film Festival surpassed every expectation I had. It transformed my view of the film industry, and motivated me to actively pursue a career there. I also discovered I have a hidden desire for minimalism in film.”

“If anything, going to Sundance taught me that it is possible to get where you dream of going with film; it is not easy, but it is possible. Many of the films and filmmakers inspired me and encouraged me in that aspect. Leaving Sundance I feel like I had gleaned both a fresh sense of confidence in myself and a clear motivation for why I want to make films.”

“Talking with some of the directors of the films shown made the whole idea of making a film seem more attainable.”

“As I approach filmmaking, I want to take these films to heart, and learn to allow my sufferings and trials to produce creativity and art. I realize from watching and thinking about these films, that I have to allow myself the freedom to feel more, to let my senses and emotions fuel my creativity.”

“I discovered I am much taller than many of my idols, including Roger Ebert. Although my conversations sometimes consisted of no more than a friendly hello, I wouldn’t have traded them for a lifetime supply of Hollywood Video rentals.”

“I believe that everyone needs an adventure like this one at least once in their lives, no matter what career they are going into. When trying to convince my parents to let me come on this trip I told them it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Little did I know that it would be exactly that and so much more. THANKS!”

“I met some amazing people, saw some incredible movies and experienced God through the beauty of cinema.I worked hard to find the grain of truth in the films I saw at Sundance, and was successful on many occasions. But I also discovered something else along the way; sometimes, the journey is its own reward.”

“The Sundance Film Festival is a mecca for the marketplace of ideas. It was a week filled with stories and storytellers. In a culture that values the ‘moral of the story’ over morals themselves, this was the perfect place to learn about how to infuse our society with our message of salvation and utilize the prophetic calling.”

“I think the one thing that hit me the most at Sundance was the need for intelligent, creative and influential Christians making films at the same level of quality as we saw here.”

“I felt the Lord tugging at my heart telling me, ‘See? Do you see their hurt? Do you see their pain? Do you see how you can help them? Now go. Tell them. Show them. Let them know who I am and let me use you to bring them back to me.”

“God brought me to the darkness, let me experience it for awhile and then showed me how I can bring my light there.”

“The Sundance Film Festival helped me learn one thing: that our world needs God.”

“Sundance has taught me that, regardless of the varying degrees of fame and fortune we have achieved, we are all desperately in need of salvation, even though most people don’t know what that looks like.”

“The host homes and church were so hospitable and I am so thankful for all of the help they gave us.”

“The Windrider forum was God’s haven at Sundance—a place to digest what we had learned, a place to relax, pause and reflect.”

“On my recent excursion to this year’s Sundance Film Festival, I ultimately discovered that God’s new prophets are not C.S. Lewises, but rather, unrelenting filmmakers. And their messages for this world are spoken almost completely in gray.”

“If evangelical Christians are willing to drop or even merely loosen up on their pejorative reaction to postmodernism and embrace some of the gray, they will learn that God has room for a new language, even possibly a new message, for the world. I seek to embrace, love and be scared of this booming message that His unlikely and rag-doll prophets are continuing to spill onto film reels.”

“Sundance was a mission trip. Not in the way that comes to mind when that term is used. Most short term trips aren’t very effective in bringing people to God. These trips are really for the people that participate in them. God uses this time in another country, away from the daily grind of life, to open their eyes to the world around them. Suddenly, they see the world through different eyes. They see the pain people are in. They see the need in the world. They see that they can make a difference. That’s what Sundance was for me.”