Southeast Missouri State University’s Fault Line Film Festival hosted Locals Night and celebrated 12 years of short film competitions by showing eight Southeast-produced short films and one high school film.

Film professor Fred Jones said that the Locals Night is important because it gives students an opportunity to show their work.

“[The event] just gives all the students a chance to have their film seen in front of an audience and to get recognized for their hard work,” Jones said.

The show began at 7:00 p.m. April 22 in Rose Theater and the student films shown lasted anywhere from four to 20 minutes and consisted of many categories: comedy, suspense, musical, drama and more. After the films played, Jones invited each film's crew and cast onto the stage to talk about their process and thank the people involved.

Jones co-founded the Fault Line Film Festival in 2010 and is one of the coordinators for this year's festival. Jones said that preparing for the event was very time-consuming.

“It takes a lot. We have a committee who works on this pretty much all year. We also have some student helpers who work on this as well. Probably not too long after this festival, [we] will start working on the next one. It just takes planning and a lot of financial support from the university. There’s really a lot that goes into it,” Jones said.

Senior Jackson Bradshaw is majoring in acting and TV/Film and was one of the filmmakers shown at locals night. Bradshaw was the filmmaker for the short films “Look Back” and “Untitled Self Portrait.”

“‘Look Back' is a film about a girl who is picked up from a party by her abusive boyfriend and it does not go well,” Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw said that making the film was very fun and that the film was written in one day and filmed in two nights. He said the forest they shot the film in was located in Alto Pass, Ill.

“We would start filming at around 8 p.m. at night and we would go until like 3 a.m. in the morning,” Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw also said that making the film takes a lot of work and requires a lot of effort but it was definitely worth it.

Bradshaw’s other film “Untitled Self Portrait” was very personal to him and also won first place at the Missouri College Media Association (MCMA) awards a few weeks back.

“Untitled Self Portrait is a film I wrote, directed, and produced. I also edited it, and I even composed one of the songs. I also had an amazing casting crew. Pretty much all of them were theater majors and it was kinda like their first film and I’m glad I got to help them in that experience,” Bradshaw said.

Senior TV/Film major Emma Goodrick, editor of the film “Cape Creature,” said that there were a lot of moving pieces in the film and there were some challenges as far as the locations for the film.

“One of the biggest things we ran into was trying to find places to film. We originally were supposed to film in a liquor store, but there were a lot of issues with planning that. There also were definitely some safety concerns for some of the places we were going to film as well,” Goodrick said.

Goodrick also said that filming “Cape Creature” required a lot of time and would usually take 4-6 hours each time they would shoot.

Audience member Rainier Conley is the brother of Elise Conley who was the filmmaker of “No Exit” shown at locals night.

Conley said this was his first time ever being at the film festival and he really enjoyed it.

“Overall, my favorite thing tonight was just the entire festival and just being able to seeing how things worked and being able to see all the different perspectives and talents of artists,” Conley said.

Conley said he produced the music featured in the film and it was “really special” to work with his sister. “No Exit" was a horror film about a masked killer with the first shot of the film focused on a No Exit sign.

“Having a younger sibling sometimes you don’t really get along, but when you have similar dreams and aspirations as one another, it's really cool,” Conley said.

The Faultline Film Festival Gala and Awards ceremony will take place at 7 p.m. on April 23 in Rose Theater. The two films “Untitled Self Portrait” and Drukqs from locals night will show there as well.

To learn more about the festival, visit their website.