DC Shorts Film Festival

I'm ready for my close-up!

By Taylor on February 5, 2008 9:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have to be honest, I've done some pretty cool things in my short life. Before I graduated from high school I had an internship with ElleGirl Magazine, doing the book reviews for their website and getting lots of cool preview books that I still own. For more than a year, I worked at a really fun and funky soap store in Georgetown, possibly the most gorgeous place on the East Coast. This summer, I did the coolest thing ever - I spent my time in New York City as an entertainment intern for CosmoGirl Magazine. For three months I helped interview bands and celebrities, went to events, and was just all-around awesome (Bite me, homogeneous girls from The Hills. I saw what the fashion interns did - errand girls, I say!). But now I'm back in the district, getting ready to finish my junior year at The Catholic University of America and working at my most exciting internship yet - for the DC Shorts Film Festival. Now it might not be as glamorous as CosmoGirl or ElleGirl or ThatGirl, but for me, it's the internship of my dreams. How can that possibly be?

It's because more than I love New York City, or anything else in the world for that matter, I love movies. Just ask any of my friends. I could go into the whole big thing about how cinema is today's truest art form (making Scorsese like Michaelangelo?) and how it's a reflection on society, but I'll save my preaching for another time. I'm a bit of a film snob, but I also spend a lot of time talking about the newest controversy in Hollywood, or the Oscar nods, or why my roommates' favorite movie sucks. Don't feel too bad for my friends, though, because with my movie obsession also comes a DVD addiction. Yeah, baby. I'm better than Netflix. So here I am, a precocious and adorable college junior on her way to living the dream: getting into grad school and eventually getting my PhD in Cinema Studies. You gotta dream big! Is there anything more exciting, in your opinion? ...Please don't answer that. But I can't help it! I love movies. I can't help it if I'm more Cinema Paradiso than The Devil Wears Prada.

That's why I'm working at the DC Shorts Film Festival, which exclusively shows films under 20 minutes - films that would otherwise go virtually unnoticed in the film industry. I myself have been guilty of ignoring the noble short film - the only short film I look forward to is the one before a Pixar feature! But now I'm finally getting the chance to work up close and personal with people who love film almost as much as I do. The filmmakers who enter the festival are almost always completely independent, which is really amazing because it takes a lot of time and money to make a film - even a short one!

It's more than 7 months until the DC Shorts Film Festival this September, but I can already tell that there's plenty that goes into making this thing happen. This season, on DC Shorts Intern, we'll be pursuing Academy accreditation, a wider audience, and a place among the world's major film festivals! What-dance? I'll keep you posted. And, naturally, try to justify my obsession with the movies by pointing out everything that's really really cool about them.

Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night!

Guess the movie: