On Thursday, April 13, dozens of CSU students and friends filed into the theater in the Behavioral Sciences Building to watch 19 new short films together.

This was the annual premiere of the Through the Student Lens Film Festival (TSL), the first and only film festival created for and run by CSU students and alumni.

TSL showcases student creativity

TSL got its start during the COVID-19 pandemic, but came back for its first in-person premiere in the spring of 2022. The audience at this year’s festival was nearly double last year’s.

“I heard nothing but good things from the audience about this year’s films,” says student festival director Samantha Greff. All originals created by CSU students and alumni, the films cover everything from grief and self-love to reckoning with crises like wildfires, sexual assault, and political change. Filmmakers took varying approaches, from the journalistic to the surreal.

Watch the entire festival online here, and see the winners below.

Winning films

DIRECTOR’S PICK

Winner: Take Your Hands Off My Body by Sydney Leemhuis (’22, Journalism and Media Communication B.A.). Sydney battled her experience of PTSD and surviving sexual assault in the hope of connecting with others.

Runner Up: A World With Too Much Sound by Greta Nelson Bechtold (senior, Journalism and Media Communication major). Greta shares how even the smallest sound can be bigger than you’d think.

BEST OF FEST

Winner: A Broken Record by Jevon Jordan McKinney (sophomore, Journalism and Media Communication major). JJ interviews Black musicians in Denver on history, music, and culture through a journalist’s lens.

Runner Up: Ghost by Wren Bridgwater (senior, Interdisciplinary Liberal Arts major). Wren brings us up to close to personal haunting feelings.

MOST IMPACTFUL

Winner: In the Culture: A Black Manifesto by Zail Acosta (junior, Journalism and Media Communication major) in collaboration with Kaleb Chaney (junior, Theatre major). Zail and Kaleb explore the celebration of Black joy and success.

Runner Up: The Words I Never Said by Meredith Hendrix (sophomore, Journalism and Media Communication major). Meredith shares a story of deep grief, loss, and most of all, love. Rest in peace Nicholas K. Nair (2001-2022).

WILD CARD

Winner: The Perfect Match by Carson Preusse (senior, Journalism and Media Communication major). Carson offers a bite of a perfect love story that will give you all the fuzzy feelings.

Runner Up: Time by Marlee Ebert (senior, Journalism and Media Communication major). Marlee gives us a rhythmic reminder of the limited memories we have to make in this lifetime.

About the festival

Through the Student Lens (TSL) is possible thanks to the support of the Department of Communication Studies’ ACT Human Rights Film Festival. TSL features documentaries, short films, animated films, personal narrative, experimental work, and more. CSU students and alumni submit their films for consideration from November through March. Films are then officially selected for screening at the festival by a group of programmers and staff in April.

The 2023 TSL Film Festival was made possible by the work of Program Director Usama Alshaibi; Student Director Samantha Greff; screening committee members Jaden Busnardo and Meredith Hendrix; volunteers Isaac Curtis, Andrew Eisenstein, Hannah Hitchcock, Abigail Johnson, Sean O’Brien, Daniel Mastrodonato, Mather Rowan, and Daniel Rode; and ACT Human Rights Film Festival Managing Director Beth Seymour.

Follow the festival on Instagram or like them on Facebook for more news and opportunities to submit films to future festivals.