The seventh annual Little Rock Film Festival is scheduled for May 15-19, and for the first time, Harding University will be present as a co-sponsor.
Mass communications professors Dr. Jack Shock and Dr. Jim Miller went to the festival last year and got to know Craig Renaud, festival co-founder and co-artistic director. Shock, chairman of the communication department, then met with the planners, who offered Harding the opportunity to co-sponsor the film festival.
According to Miller, Harding will have an advertisement and a visual presence at the festival and will have a session that will focus on Joe Aaron and Kim Swink, two Harding graduates that are producing feature films in Arkansas this summer.
“To be able to network and get to know people that are big names in the film industry of Arkansas will be a great opportunity for Harding,” Miller said. “Arkansas is becoming one of those places where many feature films are made. There are money and tax benefits that are offered to filmmakers that come to Arkansas to produce their films.”
Even if Harding does not yet have a filmmaking major, in the last school year the department of mass communication added a script production for TV/film class and a script writing production class. Also, during Summer Session I, Aaron, co-creator of the TV-show “Doug” will be teaching the script production class.
“Hopefully we will make connections that will benefit our students and help those students that want to get into the filmmaking industry find their place and find people that can help them to that,” Miller said.
Senior Chanhee Song, public relations major, is looking forward to being involved in the festival.
“Even if I don’t end up getting any connections there, just the fact that I was there with our department is totally worth it,” Song said.
Some of the categories in this year’s festival are the “Golden Rock Best Narrative Feature,” the “Golden Rock Best Documentary Feature,” the “Arkansas Times Audience Award,” the “Best Arkansas Music Video” and the “Best Film Made in Arkansas.”
“I’m so excited that our communication department is a part of the program and a sponsor at the film festival,” Song said. “It gives us an opportunity to get our name out there and hopefully to connect with some of the media entities in Little Rock for future reference.”
