Second USC Multilingual Student Film Festival
Spring 2024
Theme
The 2024 Multilingual Student Film Festival theme is HAPPY.
Short description
USC Multilingual Student Film Festival is an initiative of the Center for Languages and Cultures. It is a fun competition among students who are registered in language study at USC.
Students create an original video that showcases their creativity and conversational skills in the target language. Each participating language selects one video to represent their group at the Festival during a viewing event. A jury panel consisting of faculty members from all participating languages votes to select winners, who receive prizes. A live audience will also vote for the best film via smartphones.
Goals
The Festival aims:
- to create a community of language learners among beginning students of all languages;
- to showcase the richness and diversity of language at learning at USC and to foster community;
- to energize students;
- to serve as a creative assessment, and
- to increase motivation to continue learning the language of your choice at USC.
Competition entry rules and requirements
- In order to participate, students have to be registered in a Basic Language course.
- Each language program will present only one video at the Festival. The video should be in one of the 15 languages offered by USC.
- The video must include English subtitles.
- Video should be between 4 to 6 minutes in length.
- The video must include credits with the names of video creators.
- It must be made only in the target language (no English).
- Videos must have a significant amount of talking; music can be used as background; please include a slide with credits for copyright);
- All entries must be the result of group work. No more than 4 people per group. All members of the group must talk equal amounts of time.
- Films must be submitted through a working YouTube link to the committee by the established deadline to be included in the competition.
Winners
First, second and third prize winners will be announced at the end of the Festival and presented with a small token of appreciation.. In addition, videos that have best acting, best cinematography, most original/creative concept or the funniest story may receive honorary mentions. The night of the ceremony, submitted films will be screened and a winner will be selected by popular vote.
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Center for Languages and Cultures Community Outreach Committee
María Mercedes Fages Agudo (Chair)
Jamie Fudacz
Steven Gonzalez
Jennifer Misran
Jackie Cohen-Steinberg
David Zarazúa
Past Festivals
2022 Festival
Participating Films
Arabic (2nd Prize Winner)
Day in the Life
Chinese
A Day in the Life of a Student
German (3rd prize winner)
Stress Traum
Hebrew
Day in Life
Russian (1st prize winner)
How to Find Friends in Strange Circumstances
Spanish
Day in the Life
Jury
Steven Gonzalez (chair), Dornsife Fellow in General Education in the department of classics
Susan Corban Harris, Executive Director of JEP
Olivia Verónica Martínez, ESL Lecturer, American Language Institute
Shushan Karapetian, Ph.D., Deputy Director, USC Institute of Armenian Studies
Michael Renov, PhD, The Haskell Wexler Endowed Chair in Documentary, Professor of Cinema & Media Studies, Vice Dean, Academic Affairs, USC School of Cinematic Arts