Alfredo Aparicio/Staff Writer
“I had this idea for a festival that would showcase media work, done mostly by students, but also by faculty and alumni,” said Dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication Raul Reis.
The idea grew into the FIU Media Arts Festival, which will be the closing event for the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau’s Miami Film Month that is designed to showcase Miami’s significant role as an international film destination.The festival will provide an opportunity for students in SJMC as well as faculty alumni to showcase visually oriented projects across various fields such as journalism, public relations and advertising.
“We were thinking about the work students do, the classes they take as well as faculty involvement and we thought the unifying element was storytelling,” said Reis. “Everything that is produced has a visual representation and students are required to do various multimedia presentations so it made sense to focus on this aspect in our inaugural year.”
This year’s theme, “Only in Miami…” came from Reis’ desire to unite the entries around a common theme regardless of the wide range of entries. “Miami is a very unique city and we wanted the entries to portray this diversity and uniqueness. In the future, we might change the theme or structure of the festival but, for our first year, this theme seemed to be a good fit for the festival.”
Out of the more than 30 entries that were submitted, 25 will be showcased at the festival and represent the rich, exciting culture in Miami. “The website for the festival was a big help in making the submission process easy and accessible,” said Reis. “We are very happy with the amount of interest and submissions considering it’s our first year and the entries were required to be under five minutes. The qualities of the submissions have also great. We’re really happy with the work people have submitted.”
One of the entries, an eBook entitled 305: Stories of Miami and South Florida, was produced by journalism students as a class project with the help of Robert “Ted” Gutsche, Jr., an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Broadcasting, and includes various media like photos, videos and 20 chapters of different stories from the Miami and South Florida areas.
“One of the reasons for the project was to train media students to get ahead of the curve and to get students to think about other forms of media that combine text, images and videos across various disciplines like news and advertising,” said Gutsche. “One of the emerging trends in journalism is to put it into electronic books and the iBook software lends itself to making the experience more interactive.”
The stories themselves represent the multilayered Miami culture and deal with the experiences of Hispanics in South Florida. “These are stories you would only hear in the Miami area. Outside of Miami, ‘Hispanic’ tends to mean Mexican, so the students were trying to get out these stories about what it’s like for Hispanics.
Hopefully, it alters people’s understanding of the Miami culture and help them realize how this country is such a global space,” said Gutsche. Reis, in agreement with Gutsche, recognizes the festival as not only a way to showcase the talent of the South Florida community but as a way for students to network.
“We have a lot of talented alumni doing visual work, music videos, etc. and we wanted to bring them to campus and expose their work in the same way we do with students work and have the students network and learn from them.” “It’s a great event and I hope students can come and meet other people in community,” Gutsche said. “It’s been exciting to see this community’s sense of art flourish.”
The FIU Media Arts Festival will take at 5:00 p.m. on March 26 at the College of Architecture + the Arts – Miami Beach Urban Studios. The event is free and open to the public.
