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The 2024 Film Festival at UC Davis, which features a series of short student-created films, will be held on May 16 and 17 in 1002 Cruess Hall.   

Film Festival showcases films that are eight minutes or less and have been created by undergraduate or graduate students and recent graduates. The films include a variety of genres and styles, from narrative to documentary to experimental, with a different program each evening. In addition, the festival honors short original screenplays.

The 2024 festival features a different program of films each night and begins at 7:30 p.m. with doors opening at 7 p.m. A pre-screening reception will be held both nights. Award ceremony is May 17. 

The event is free and attendees must register in advance. 

This year’s festival is being produced by a team of students who are enrolled in CDM 189: Where Do Films Go: Film Festivals and Distribution taught by Julie Wyman, associate professor of cinema and digital media.

A special highlight of this year’s festival that in addition to faculty, the selection jury will include three CDM alumni David Nessl (BA, technocultural studies, ‘14) Anna Oh (BA, film studies and American studies, ‘14) and Jess Philipps (BA, technocultural studies and communication, ‘13). 

Nessl works in visual effects as a motion capture technical director and animator on films such as Finch (2021) and the upcoming Mufasa: The Lion King (2025). His short film Chichi was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival 2019.

Oh began her career with Halmoni, a short documentary that explores themes of immigration and Asian American identity. She is now a senior product manager at Fandom, where she leads product development for major platforms like Metacritic, TV Guide, and GameSpot.

Philipps is an Emmy-nominated director and documentary filmmaker who is currently the showrunner and executive producer for a documentary series covering the black market trade of rhino horn. She was the co-executive producer of the Emmy-nominated, 11 Minutes, a documentary series about America’s deadliest mass shooting for Paramount+.

Established in 2000 in the UC Davis Department of Theatre and Dance, the festival was founded by students involved in filmmaking (with other departments joining later). Alumni filmmakers have gone on to submit works to numerous regional film festivals. 

The festival is co-produced by the UC Davis departments of Art and Art History, Cinema and Digital Media, Design, Music, and Theatre and Dance, which are part of the College of Letters and Science.