Photo courtesy of Jenna Kramer.
It’s a rare and special thing when a college student not only makes a film, but successfully submits it to a film festival to have it seen by one and all on the big screen. This week I interviewed Jenna Kramer ‘22 about what it was like to both make a short film over the pandemic, but have it shown in the student film section at the coveted 2021 Mystic Film Festival.
So tell me about your film, forget the festival, what am I in for when I watch what you’ve made?
The film, Today’s Paper, Yesterday’s News, is basically about the progression of a woman and her appetite as she keeps getting introduced to violence in the media. So at the beginning, it’s absolutely disgusting. She can’t finish her meal because she’s so affected by a news title about a woman being brutally murdered. But as she’s reading more and more news titles that follow a very similar, terrible concentration on violence against women, she grows more and more accustomed to it, so then she gains her appetite slowly because it’s less gross to her. So it’s basically touching upon how we are desensitized to the media, and since it’s filmed from a birds eye view, looking down, you can kind of position yourself as the owner of the hands, and think “maybe I’m desensitized as well.”
How did you go about submitting your film to the festival? Were you imagining that it would get in?
No! I had no idea it was going to get in. This was the first time I’ve ever applied to a film festival and it’s kind of an interesting process. You have to fill out a synopsis of what your film is about, and also little things like director and other credits for the film. But you also have to pay to submit your film, which was incredibly shocking for me. I was looking at other film festivals today and it’s upwards of 200 dollars to submit your film, and that’s not even guaranteeing you win anything. So that was surprising.
You’re the director on this piece. Did you do anything, or everything else on this film, or did you have a crew?
No, it was just me. It was actually during the pandemic, so I was home by myself. I edited it, shot it, and produced it. Every single step I did myself, it was pretty fun!
Is this your first time seeing something you’ve made in a theater? On the big screen? How do you feel about it?
Yes! I hadn’t even considered that. It’s pretty weird. It’s pretty weird to look at the list of films and see your name, because this is kind of new to me, producing films is kind of new to me. And to see my film projected to a room full of people that I don’t even know is exciting.
When and where can we all check your film out?
You can find it at Jennakramerfilms.com.
