The Fault Line Film Festival has seen tremendous growth over its five years of existence at Southeast Missouri State University, with more than 30 entries this year to the festival.

Fault Line Film Festival is a student film competition that culminates in a gala screening open to the public of the winning films on Friday.

"We've seen it grow not just in the quantity of entries, but in the quality of entries. You just see it improve every year and also just the regional interest is something new, too. We are starting to get a lot more universities interested in our festival," Fred Jones, Southeast TV and film professor, said.

This year, the festival received entries from Kentucky, Iowa, Tennessee, Illinois and various cities in Missouri. The festival gives out 10 awards each year, ranging from Audience Choice to Best Invitational Film to Best Animation.

"The festival has a $1,000 prize for Best of Festival, and the category winners like Best Drama, Best Comedy, they win $250 each. We have some honorable mentions as well, but the films this year were great," Jones said. "We had so many great entries to choose from, and we're seeing films this year that we haven't seen this style of film in previous years. For example, we had a musical entered in this year's festival for the first time. We see that students are really starting to experiment with technique more than in the past, and it's just been kind of exciting to see the quality of the films."

The students typically plan their films and write their scripts early in the semester and shoot the films by October, giving them enough time to edit afterwards.

"I think that it's really neat that Southeast has this because it pushes students to create things," senior TV and film major Amanda Sachtleben said. "My sophomore year, my first semester I was a film major. I had never filmed anything before, but I was like, 'You know what, this is going to be the spark that gets me going,' and I made my first film. Some students just need that initiative and it's really exciting to have that and have it be an opportunity to show it in front of other people."

Sachtleben won both Best Comedy and the Audience Choice Award for her film that year, "Blind Date." This year, she submitted an entry that deals with what someone does after they receive life-changing news.

"We created the event to promote student filmmakers to have an outlet to express their creative storytelling techniques," Dr. Jim Dufek, TV and film professor at Southeast, said.

The event was started five years ago when the Douglas C. Greene Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship came to Dufek and Jones about adding a film component to their entrepreneurship week. Over the past five years, the festival has gradually gained attention and has been labeled as one of the "significant film festivals" in the state of Missouri by the Missouri Film Commission and the Missouri Department of Tourism.

"It's unique because it's the only festival that's dedicated just to student filmmaking short films," Dufek said. "Where other film festivals have a student category, this is just a student film festival. So we're proud of that."

The festival officially starts on Wednesday when the awards are announced at noon in the Donald C. Bedell Performance Hall at the River Campus. At that event, Sam Park will be this year's keynote speaker.

"Sam is a merit award winner as a Southeast graduate, and Sam has agreed graciously to come in to speak about producing films," Dufek said. "Sam has a company called Monsterverse that promotes horror films and wants to talk about the process of making films."

Past keynote speakers have included David Johnson, the president and partner of Coolfire Media who produces commercials and reality shows, Steven Poster, president of the Cinematographers Guild, and Dave Rutherford, a camera operator who specializes in Steadicams.

Park will also give a master class on Thursday for Southeast students.

"These people really love to share their experience, especially with students," Dufek said. "I've been to these conferences where they just get up and do their thing because it's professional to professional, but with students you see that fire and that passion. They want to be able to ... share with young people."

The festival ends with a gala screening of the award winning films and others the judges want to recognize at 7 p.m. Friday at Rose Theatre in Grauel Building.

"We typically have about 90 minutes worth of films to show, but the event itself is really cool," Jones said. "We have a red carpet laid out front. We have a place for people to get their picture taken. Most people come really dressed up. Sometimes people come in tuxedos and formal dresses and it's just a cool event where filmmakers get to have their films screened for a large audience. So they get that cool feedback, and afterwards, we have a people's choice winner, where the crowd gets to choose their favorite film and we give out all kinds of door prizes, and we have cake and punch afterwards. It's just kind of a fun event and a good way to kind of give recognition to these student filmmakers."

Dufek added that he always sees people come to the event for the first time who tell him that they will never miss it again.

"You know, it's not always the most polished product, but it's an idea that gets from paper onto the big screen, and for us to have that outlet is pretty exciting," Dufek said.