Promotional Advancer Article

The first Progeny Film Festival will be held April 26 at the Lyric Theatre, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The festival will feature a large range of films made by Tech students, including dramas, comedies, documentaries, and animation.

According to senior communications student Eric Latham, the founder and event coordinator of the festival, this is the first film festival at Virginia Tech that allows its students to showcase their work and compete. The judging panel will most likely include professors or film experts. Latham, who wrote the initial proposal for the festival last semester, decided to create the Progeny Film Festival after taking a good look at Tech’s current film program.

“We brag about being an institution that has diverse programming. Well, after budget cuts we are a lot less diverse than before,” Latham said. “Film allows any student or member of the community to share their thoughts in a visual and aural sense. To me, it is the most creative way in which humans can express themselves.”

After the initial proposal, Latham created a student board that has since received support from the community, the school, the communications department, and film production professor Jerry Scheeler. The board is in the final stages of planning and expects more than 30 entries for the first year. To enter, students can contact technical/content director John Irwin through email for an application.

In terms of the future of Progeny Film Festival, Latham wants the event to become a week long festival that includes other events and student submissions from different schools.

“I can easily see it becoming a big student/community film festival in a multi-state area,” Latham said. “Most of all, I want to come back in 10 to 15 years and see it still going.”